The Reverie gang

Voice Over (00:00:04):

This show is sponsored by the Comics Shop. We hope you enjoy the show.

Leigh Chalker (00:00:26):

All right, good evening. Welcome to another episode of Tuesday Chinwag. My name is Lee Chalker, the creator of the Australian Independent Comic book Battle for Bustle, published through Comex. Now, COMEX is streamed across two livestream channels. One is X, the other is Aussie verse. Because I’m limited to time this evening, there will be a yellow ticker box somewhere addresses around. I do implore you to check out both of these sites like and subscribe ’em anywhere you can find them because it is in a positive nature for all things Australian comics, creatives. And if you’re interested in all this sort of stuff, you will find great interest in those channels. So this is the biggest show that I have done on Chin Wags. So forgive me if I get a little bit Bitly Dly Day. That’s my code word for and on with the show. So look, this evening’s show is, well I would say one of the healthiest Australian comic book publishers in Australia currently at the moment. And it is RY Publications. I am here with my special guest, the white cat up there, and they will just randomly be appearing on the show. And for everyone sending in comments, feel free, say hello and get a little bit of cat bottom in your life.

(00:01:59):

So everyone thank you for your support today. Welcome. Beautiful. So going around the room, I’m going to start down in the bottom right hand corner to me. I have Mr. Danny Nolan. Good evening, sir. I have Mr. Dave Breeze. How are you sir? I have my great mate and very happy birthday to you, Mr. Robert Sp Lyle. I have another great mate, Mr. Ben Sullivan in the house I have Peter J. Lawson. Hello, I have Eli Aden. Hello sir, I have Peter Lane. How are you sir? I have tab Petrowski. How are you sir? And here I’m have the main man, which I’m going to start with The Brains behind Rie when it all kicked off many years ago. A man that I would be remiss if I didn’t share with you that several years ago when I wasn’t doing comic books, this gentleman gave me the opportunity to print and publish Battle for Bustle for the first time. And for that I am forever grateful and I wish him a very warm welcome Mr. Gary Della. How are you, sir?

Gary Dellar (00:03:19):

Very good. I’m very honoured to be here long before we guest and it’s a great privilege.

Leigh Chalker (00:03:26):

Thank you, mate. It’s great to have you here. It’s great to have all of you here. So I will try and wrangle some control here this evening, but there’s a heap of creatives. They’ve all been busy, busy, busy. You’re about to hear what’s happening in the Reverie publications world. But I am going to start with Gary because he is the man. So Gary Mate, who,

Gary Dellar (00:03:48):

Well, basically everybody’s heard it before I started off in 83, probably a couple of years before that because we just got together and a group of us and said basically we’re just going to put a comic out. And we did. And we didn’t realise at the time that it was going to take off that much. And unfortunately, we’ve gone and got to the way it was. Later on down the track, we realised that we’ve done really well, but the figures that come through were very late three or four years later. But in the meantime, we had to cancel it because of that. However, the repercussions of doing that comic way back then hasn’t stopped. And what happened was that I was constantly getting emails and letters and saying, when you get bring the comics back, we really need it. And I just kept putting it off, kept putting it off.

(00:04:34):

And then basically in 2018 we said, ah, that’s it. We’re going to put out a trade and see how it goes. And that trade was put out in I said 2018 and put it through the Kickstarter plus through all the tables we did at the time, and it actually sold quite well. So that sort of indicated to me that we will get snuck into it again. The other thing is also with the comics in general is that, as you know with everybody here, is that I like to promote everybody and everybody because everybody needs it. We all want it and we all enjoy what we’re doing. So that’s why a lot of us are here now because we’ve got our own ips, you’ve got their own creative talents. And the best way to do that is get a group together and just promote it. And that’s what’s happening and that’s why we’re here today.

Leigh Chalker (00:05:27):

Thank you, sir. I also think it’s a great, one of those things that Comex and myself like to promote a lot is the community of creators as well. And I mean, wow, man, sitting here, I mean, I’m with people I’ve admired, I’ve worked with and I’ve watched from afar, a gentleman I’m just meeting now that is about to drop his first comic book and she’d be very proud from the little glimpse that I’ve seen already from the hard work. And man, I’m really looking forward to tonight’s show to be in all of your company. So I really do want to get to see, and I want the people to see all the work that Rev publication does as well because they dive. Wow, what a lineup. Gday to everyone. And hello to Mr. Dave Die. Hello, Nick May, how are you mate? And oh, we’ve got a soldier down, but well he’ll come back.

(00:06:26):

Look, what it boils down to is just for everyone at home tonight, now that I’ve calmed down a little bit because I’ve got a little bit like Woo before, it’s like it was all too much for me. I can get a bit over excited, but a little bit of Zen kicked in there. So we’ll see how we go. Rie, I guess with just my background with you guys is like, and for the people watching, Gary gave me a shot with Battle for Bustle when I wasn’t even on the blip and I randomly contacted him one day after seeing a Facebook site pop up and a quote that my dad told me a long time ago when I was a little boy and he was alive was always look at life with Rie. And at that particular point in time, I’d seriously damaged my back, been laid up on the floor quite literally for upwards of six months, not having any idea what I was going to do with myself.

(00:07:28):

Had continued to draw through my teams and into my early twenties this story. And for some particular reason that Ad and Ry stuck in my mind and I reached out to Gary. The funny story is I said, Gary, I’ve got a couple of comic books I want to publish. And Gary said, oh yeah, and I’m sure in his mind he thought, I’ve heard that before. And he said, why don’t you send me eight pages? So I think I sent him about 50 and Ben then from that point on, Gary helped me, I guess start got issue one out, which is one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had. So for that I am forever grateful and that little nudge in the right direction and the chance that he took on me has led in this moment to myself being in the presence of nine people that I greatly admire for a very strong work ethic, what they’ve done for Australian comic books and they continue to do so, whether it’s through creating comic books or live streaming or interviews or being positive mentors to other people coming up through the ranks.

(00:08:44):

And I think that’s fantastic. So community really is awesome. And check out Rev Publications website, go and buy some books and you’ll hear about all the books and Kickstarters that you can jump onto very shortly. So I guess Omni Bow, how are you buddy? Where’s the Olson twins? This is a full house butter ching. Yeah. All right. Yeah, all. All right. Thank you for tuning in. Now I’m going to start, I guess there’s a lot of things happening here because there’s a web going on as you will find out throughout the evening. So what I’m going to do, hello Alex, what I’m going to do is I’m going to start with the man who is about to release his first comic book. And Gary, I’m going to get you to jump in here with Eli. Please feel free everyone to talk, have a yarn, this is free, this is absolutely everyone to chinwag. This is what the show’s all about. It is fluid. So Eli, hello my mate, how are you? And congratulations book.

Eli Abidin (00:09:59):

Thank you very much.

Leigh Chalker (00:10:01):

Tell me about yourself.

Eli Abidin (00:10:05):

About 10 years ago I decided if I don’t start writing comics writing, I’m never going to write. So I started writing a comic with my mate who was doing my tattoos. So I had a look at his artwork. I said, have you ever thought of drawing a comic? He said, I’d love to but I can’t write. Said mate, I’d love to write a comic, but I can’t draw. And so in 28 hours of ing, we worked out what we were going to do and we started writing now a futuristic mishmash of all the genres we liked. And this is son of Van and then beautiful. Yes. Two years later I met a publishing group and we’re re-releasing them all in single issue format now.

Leigh Chalker (00:10:49):

Yeah, yeah. Alright. Okay. So it was originally set up in a bit of a trade, was it mate? Like it’s a big comic book.

Eli Abidin (00:10:56):

Recently set up this graphic novel type formats. I’ve got four trade paperbacks that I’ve got printed. I’ve got a fifth trade paperback drawn and written, but haven’t printed it yet. But I think that it’s a much better fit for it to come out in individual issues and I’m lettering it and redesigning it to sort of fit more in with the referee style of comic book presentation. And also originally I was just doing what I felt would be cool and just borrowing from a lot of different styles that I’ve read over the years. But now that I’ve fallen in with this new group of creatives, I’m actually getting told no, why don’t you try doing this? And shown a better way to do things. So particularly that bloke SP has helped me very, very much so with designing sound effects and with lettering placements.

Leigh Chalker (00:12:01):

Oh, he’s that man, isn’t he?

Rob Lisle (00:12:05):

Thanks man.

Leigh Chalker (00:12:09):

Yeah, he is. So let’s not forget 20 everyone in comment throw out you’re 28 today, mate. I’ll tell you sp that’s what you tell

Rob Lisle (00:12:17):

Us though. It’s close to 30. Oh golly.

Leigh Chalker (00:12:23):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m a little bit older than you sps, so you

Rob Lisle (00:12:29):

That’s joke. I wish I was close to 30 but a less. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (00:12:34):

I know Eli. One of the things that I greatly appreciate and what I’ve learned doing all of these chin wags man is people reaching out to others and getting a sort of a mentorship in the creative side of comic books. And with the mentoring chip you get to meet other people like you’ve met SP given your hand, you’ve met Gary and stuff like that. I think mentoring is a really strong, it just infuses the creative side of things, man. Because look, I was a bit of an egghead and I did everything by myself when I started and was a bit of an ego, freaker, aha. And then Gary came along and Gary stripped me down to nothing man. And said, no man, think about this, this, this and that. And you know what, a hundred percent right. And how did you find coming out of, I guess your little area with you and your mate doing all of this comic book work, man to finding Ry and then getting Gary and sped to jump on board and give you a few little pointers, what was that like for you?

Eli Abidin (00:13:43):

It was all a big inspiration for me is actor Denny Rejo. I don’t know if you know his story, you know who I’m talking about, the machete? Yeah, yeah. He was a criminal and he got picked up by a director, said, I want someone to teach. Oh, what’s Julie Roberts brother Eric Roberts. They needed somebody to train Eric Roberts how to box. And so de Treo put his hand up, he said, I can do that. And then from there he just decided then and there he’s going to start being nice to people and start helping people. And now he’s acting in big name movies and he is headlining and all that stuff just from being nice to people. And I found that quite inspiring and I thought, I wonder what’ll happen if I start being nice to people?

Leigh Chalker (00:14:36):

What by being nice mate, it is like stuff coming to you. Is it good stuff?

Rob Lisle (00:14:42):

He’s a wicked boxer now. You’re a wicked boxer now. It worked out. Yeah,

Eli Abidin (00:14:49):

Exactly. So I’m just glad that that was ER’s story, whatever his story was, I was going to copy it. I’m glad didn’t further,

Leigh Chalker (00:15:00):

He didn’t end up in the real life machete mate, so I suppose there’s a good act of kindness there, but kindness goes a long way mate. It’s good to treat people kindly and put a smile on people’s faces. You never know what door that’s going to open, man. So good on you.

Eli Abidin (00:15:15):

Yeah, that’s it. When I got my very first comic printed, sorry,

Leigh Chalker (00:15:20):

You’re on bud. You continue.

Eli Abidin (00:15:22):

When I got my very first comic printed, I took it to Evil Empire Comics in Brunswick back when they were open and I showed Phil, the guy that works there, he said, oh, you should go to a comic once this weekend. There’ll be heaps of people there that do all this sort of stuff. And so I actually went to the comic meet and I met Brendan Hall and I fell in with the Melbourne comic creators group that have their monthly meetings. And then yeah, just follow the chain of dominoes, met people, talk to people and really Gary’s got so much charisma and so much energy. If he walks in the room and you don’t notice him, there’s something wrong. You’ve got your eyes closed or something. So that was it. I met Gary, we hit it off and here we are a few years later.

Leigh Chalker (00:16:11):

Yeah, that’s great man. No, I’m really happy for you dude. You must be super excited man. So you’re with a good, well

Eli Abidin (00:16:17):

Definitely man.

Leigh Chalker (00:16:19):

Yeah, and can’t go wrong man. There’s a lot of people. It’s a great feeling getting your first comic book out man. It’s probably one of the best comic feelings I’ve had doing comic books anyway, so I’m excited for you man. But when it launches and we’ve seen the had a little look at the proof tonight and stuff and feel free to continue to join in tonight, Eli and I will because we’ve got such a big show made. I will endeavour to bounce back to you this evening, but thank you so much for that little touch on where you’ve come from.

Eli Abidin (00:16:58):

One final point, Lee, it’s not just Spez that I’ve met that’s helped me. He is been great, but everybody else that’s pictured here has given me some sort of advice or some sort of inspiration or some sort of motivation to keep going. So Tad was a great editor. I only worked with him for a little while, but I hope to work with him again soon. Pete’s hilarious. That is all. Oh sorry, Peter Lane.

Leigh Chalker (00:17:28):

Well hey, that’s you got choice,

Eli Abidin (00:17:33):

Peter Laws

Leigh Chalker (00:17:37):

E, you’re in great esteem. I mean Tad 40 year dark Nebula, one of the great Australian comic books, man, the first Australian comic book that I ever picked up off the shelf, tad knows that Dave Dre is down here, Southern Squadron, varying Marvel, dc a whole heap of stuff, man. Do you know what I mean? Like long, long great careers man doing comic books. I mean Danny, all of these guys, man, it’s a good crew mate, so you’re very lucky man. Alright, Eli s. Alright now make sure that that cat keeps its bum your way. All right? Because there’s people out there like, whoa

Eli Abidin (00:18:25):

My eyes,

Leigh Chalker (00:18:26):

I must my eyes, I don’t want everyone blind man email that cat bottom fully offended me. I’ll my, anyway,

Eli Abidin (00:18:44):

It’s definitely going to be video now, so

Leigh Chalker (00:18:47):

There you go. Alright. Alright, very good. Alright Eli, I’m going to duck you out of here now Gary, you stay with me here, man. If I’m missing anything, you got to back me up because it’s your crew and you are the man. So I’m going to go to all the dudes that are doing single stuff at the moment before I get into the intricate web of creators and creativity. So I’m going to go to a gentleman over on my top right because he’s very quiet and I noticed in a comment today that he said he would join into things and he’d want to be a little bit anonymous. Well, you’re not anonymous right now. Danny Nolan. So how are you mate? How are you going? Alright,

Danny Nolan (00:19:30):

I’m very good, thank you. I would like to tell a little bit of a story about Gary.

Leigh Chalker (00:19:37):

You must certainly mate.

Danny Nolan (00:19:39):

I was at

(00:19:41):

Alternate Worlds in Bayswater, which is basically where I’ve personally met everyone here except for Dave and you Lee, the great comment book shop that is there. And I picked up a bit of a history bug, especially with Australian comics about, I don’t know, about nearly a decade ago. And I picked up this and I’d always heard of Berry but didn’t know whether they were still going. Now, not long after that, Nat Carmichaels oi went belly up, he wasn’t going to publish any more comics, these anthologies and then all of a sudden popped up again in Facebook, I dunno how I got hold of it. And I had two stories that were going to appear in Oyo. One with Dave by and one with Ben Michael Burn from Cranburn. And so I just said, Hey Gary, do you want these for your anthology? And he said, I’ll take anything you’ve got. I said the bar was low.

(00:21:00):

And that started a relationship where he actually asked me if I wanted to write one of the Rick McClean stories, which led to another one, which is number six. I did number four and then number six, and I must admit I’m moving away from stories now writing and the history bugger has really got me and especially when it comes to Australian comics. So I started writing history pieces and Gary was asking for reviews on old comics and little bits of history and that’s now working its way into the back of current Rebury comics as part of the fan scene at the end. That’s the beauty about these comics is you have a comic and then at the end you have input from the readers. So you have a reader section and then you have little bits and pieces about writers writing about their stories or the artists writing about their stories.

(00:22:09):

And then there’s little bits of history. So Gary’s not only made a comic, but he’s got this little bit of history, so all the fans then part of it. So it’s fun. It is really great to just, once you finish the comic, you’ve got this thing that makes you want to go, oh, okay, I’m going to keep this a little bit longer. It’s just not the duration of the story. There’s a lot more stuff you can find out about RI and what’s coming up with the comics or what people thought of the story beforehand. So it’s fun and I love that that’s more inclusive and that does build the community as well so people see that and go, oh, I can be part of this.

Leigh Chalker (00:22:51):

Yeah, yeah, I love that idea actually Denny and Gary, because one of the things when I was reading comic books as a kid, particularly Marvel and Marvel quite in the eighties, particularly in late seventies with dad stuff and oh man, even the earliest stuff, they included their readers in not just the story but with the letter pages and what was coming next and all of the varying ads that they’d have through it and even the writing. And it really made you feel like you were part of it. You felt like you were part of their history as well as they were going along. So is the fanzine and there’s some of it now for anyone that’s looking, Gary’s holding it up, obviously the fanzine, is it just based currently on the history of Rie or is it going to being in a reverie book or is it scoping out amongst the history of Australian comics itself?

Danny Nolan (00:23:50):

Well the first section was, I think the first one we did. I did this 5,000 word essay on comic books during the 1970s Australian publishing and comics, which was an exciting time for editorial comics and for the street press, but not for Australian published comics because it’s just stuff paning everywhere. And so that was fun. The eighties is something, oh it’s going to be hard because as soon as the seventies clicked into the eighties, the Australian comics went crazy. No doubt Dave and Cattle and Gary Little Testament because we all had comics come out in the eighties and it was like a renaissance. It’s bit like what was happening a few years ago and still continuing on now in this time.

(00:24:47):

So there was that story which is broken down, but I think the first stuff I did with Gary was writing about my experience of doing a comic. So that was about the Rick McClean comic. And the other stuff was Gary’s got this amazing collection of Australian comics, it’s massive, probably one of the biggest in Australia and he keeps sending me these weird 1940s comics and I’ve just been doing a review here and review there. And it’s really great seeing what people read it in those days and what they experienced in storytelling. Like these days nobody would probably expect those kind of comics and the way that they’re written and all that jazz, but you’ve got to look at it with a critical eye of somebody from the 1950s or the 1940s and it’s a fun experience. But saying that, I think the most wonderful thing I’ve been doing with Gary at the moment, and I’ve lost the piece of paper, is Toby Gary was kind enough to lend us or give us free reign with Toby and the magic pencil I’ve taken since I’ve retired from work, I’ve spent a lot more time with my local newspaper.

(00:26:15):

And so one day we were talking and we thought wouldn’t that’d be great? Since all the newspapers are drop in comics that we bring a comic back into the newspaper, Eric, that’d be great. Here you can have Toby. And we’re a monthly paper, so that was 24 months basically on material and it’s been very popular. We get a lot of feedback and at the moment we’re having a competition as well to, oh there we go, lovely for people to comment on it and just so we can get a better understanding of what people think of having comics back in the newspapers. So I want to thank Gary for being a real trends head when everybody else is throwing him out the door. Gary just says, here, take mine free of charge. And believe me, it is a great comment and it’s well put together.

(00:27:17):

The best artist in Australia as far as I’m concerned, and Gary’s story is just manic. I love Toby because the story can change on a six expense every page. And I think that’s what draws, there’s one page per issue and if you miss an issue you can miss what’s going on in the whole story, it just throw you out. So people are pretty much really stuck on it and then they’re loving it. So thank you for that. It’s probably one of the best things that’s happened to our paper. It’s actually made it more inclusive because papers these days tend to be a tactile thing that all boomers and we needed something for a younger audience and it’s worked. It’s actually got kids grabbing the paper off mom and dad and they have it. Oh, I’ve got to read that as opposed because we don’t have a sports section. So comments,

Leigh Chalker (00:28:18):

That’s great, that’s great. And for people that are listening for the first time that I’m just going to surmise here from my experience in it that probably comic books aren’t as popular as what they once was. And there was a shocking period maybe 12 months ago where cartoons and stuff were pulled out of newspapers, which I’m sure we on the screen all share a not so positive opinion of whoever made those decisions for whatever reasons. But to see Rie and gentlemen like Gary and Danny putting comic books out into newspapers, trying to reach new audiences, keep the medium itself alive is a positive thing because already from the gentleman we spoke to tonight out there we can see that they’re vibing, they’re interested, they love this stuff. You don’t do this stuff unless you love it, man, we must be crazy. This must be the most crazy people on the screen.

(00:29:16):

Love and passion, I dunno what you call compulsion. I would suggest the dog is going a man. They’re keen as well. See this is what happens in the fluidity of the chinwag. You got cat bums and you got dog barks. It’s all happening. Alright Danny, thank you mate. I’ll come back to you as quickly as I can and we’ll just keep rolling everyone, feel free. Thank you very much for the comments. I’m going to go to another man that is doing this stuff by himself. Peter Wilson, look at that lineup. Iconic. Good stuff mate. And Peter, congratulations on foes mate. Well done. Great comment. Enjoyed it immensely. I’m going to go to another Peter because there’s two Peters on the screen, which Peter should I go to? I’m going to go to the one on the outside left, Mr. Peter Lane and one of the most original ideas that myself has seen, not did I read every comic book as I would try to, but I am very busy trying to create on my own.

(00:30:23):

Sometimes things slip through the cracks, but yours did not and we’ve had quite a lot. Happy birthday, Robert from Nick May and we’ve had quite a lot to do with each other, just chatting and gas bag and stuff over the years. And Sky’s Cabin Library is, I thought it was a really original storybook man, one you should be proud of. I appreciated your dedication to the story because it has gone for a long time. It’s sort of similar, I guess parallel to where I was at starting and then finally getting it out in the pandemic and things like that. I haven’t seen you for a while. So where you at with guys? What’s happening? What’s on the agenda, the horizon, what’s happening? Boom. Hope you got that Jason working mate. Keeping him under the wood.

Peter Lane (00:31:17):

Yeah, I’m always annoying that guy. Yeah, yeah, he’s always swearing at me all the time. Well first off, I’ll show you what Rob’s done for me recently. Definitely it comes up on camera. There’s a new logo that’s going to be on future issues. So I’ll bring that up, see if I can bring it up here. Can you see that?

Leigh Chalker (00:31:45):

I can. I can. If you hold that there mate there says a look at him like magic. There we go. That’s the new logo.

Peter Lane (00:31:54):

Yeah, it is more emphasis on the skies part because the logo before I just kind of got the idea that the skies was getting lost a little bit. You can see the cabin library a lot more than you could disguise and that’s what it’s about is Sky. So yeah, so I’ve changed that. Yeah, there it’s thanks Rob.

Leigh Chalker (00:32:17):

The old one. Yeah, yeah. Well everything change is the only constant mate. We’re storytellers, we know this, so sometimes you’ve got to change the title, I guess that’s how it is. So what is shoe you up to these days? Like four or five? I mean you’ve got a couple of these dudes here like sp SPEDs, he’s everywhere man, you know what I mean? Where are you? You must like all over the shop, not enough butter on Toast mate. They’ll call you. Spread out

Peter Lane (00:32:49):

SP’s my pat of the Aussie comic industry.

Leigh Chalker (00:32:52):

Yeah, I’ll people call me worse things than that so it’s like a good one. Alright, so mate, quick rundown for everyone. Sky’s been going along pretty well. You very like you’re pumping out stuff. I see you getting around to a lot of festivals and conventions and comic book days all through Melbourne and Victoria and stuff. So you’re very active in the community down there. What are your plans with this new logo and stuff? What do you got coming out?

Peter Lane (00:33:27):

Well the next issue, issue five has got a tail by Spie in it. It’s also got a new Jason Paulos one in there which follows on from the events of previous issues. And if all goes well, there’s a Ryan Bella one in there as well, which one has Sky dip his toe into the Reverie universe a lot more. So you’ll see little cameos from certain characters torn and Toby and the Magic pencil and yeah, it should be good Issue six is the Hair but the Hippo Crossover. Oh

Leigh Chalker (00:34:08):

Lovely. Yes. Yeah,

Peter Lane (00:34:09):

Always there. There’ll be a lot more polos coming out so he’ll be in issue seven as well. There’ll be a return of spell Kitty in a story. Yeah, it’s quite a bit coming out. I’ve also had discussions with some gentlemen on the panel here. I dunno if I can go into that or not. Yeah, go ahead.

Leigh Chalker (00:34:33):

Whatever.

Peter Lane (00:34:34):

Yeah, yeah, there may be a dark nebulous skies cabin library one shot. It might also be a southern Squadron Skies cabin library. One shot in the future.

Leigh Chalker (00:34:46):

How good is that? I look.

Peter Lane (00:34:49):

Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (00:34:50):

That’s outstanding. Oh man, that excites me, man. That’s really cool. Dave Tad, look at you two go giving you characters, giving them life with all these new characters. Man, I love the community and what’s really weird is we mentioned Jason Paul lost tonight and I mentioned earlier, this is how all interconnected this stuff is from all sides of Australia. It’s really weird that the first comic book I ever bought was a Dark Nebula comic book and it was Jason Paul Tad was writing and Dave was writing and Jason Paulos was the artist and a very young Jason Paulos started in that comic book. And I enjoyed that comic book immensely, as you can obviously tell because I don’t stop talking about the thing and I should probably get it tattooed on me anyway, maybe that’s a Pickles moment. So moving on because I do, I had the drop of pickles in there. Come on Pickles moment because dropping pickles, who knows? I love pickles connotations, but I digress. So I’m just going to go straight into Peter J. Lawson, who, mate I haven’t seen you in a long time. I must congratulate you on the human fly and the very, very hard work that you’ve put into your artwork and I’ve been watching you man, and I have to say you are possibly the most improved artist that I’ve seen in the scene for a while and that’s a testament to your hard work and good on you bud. It’s well done

Peter J Lawson (00:36:30):

Work.

Leigh Chalker (00:36:32):

That’s cool, man. So we’re going to talk about your Ry work because first time I came across you was in the torn universe and man, I like the fact that this is off the topic as well, but connected as well. Isn’t it all strange? Everything connected. So the universe shows you were drawing pictures of Townsville in one of your latest sworn comic books and I’m looking at these landscapes and you know what I’m thinking, dude, I want to live there because I live in Townsville and yours look better than reality. So I think that’s a credit to you, man. Yeah,

Peter J Lawson (00:37:14):

A lot of references used to that one.

Leigh Chalker (00:37:19):

Well, I liked your version of the sugar shaker and stuff, the sugar shakers, that weird sugar shaken looking building, but you did well. So it was really well done. And man, so you’ve got torn three and torn four coming up soon. They’re about to drop. How are you feeling about those? Man?

Peter J Lawson (00:37:38):

Good. They’ve been a lot of work. Eli of course had his input into torn three Tad jumped in as editor between them. They worked up, they worked the script into something that I think all three of us are pretty proud of and I think Barry is as well. It’s actually a really solid little comic. I put my, well everything I had into the art on that one, just taking everything that the other guys were saying before in this community, how you talk to other people and you collaborate, you get feedback and every bit of feedback I’ve gotten from people about how I’m joined and what I could do do better, I just took it all and put it all into that comment pretty much. I just laid everything on the table on that one and feedback I’m getting has been pretty good, thank goodness. It seems to people seem to like it. It’s come up good and I think you should falls look hopefully got Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (00:38:49):

Yeah, no, good on you man. You should be proud. It doesn’t we

Peter J Lawson (00:38:53):

As well, which is new for me. So I’ve been feeding that script through the tat as we go and yeah, that’s interesting.

Leigh Chalker (00:39:02):

Yeah, very nice, very nice. And I see there’s a lovely Tony Menzies cover on the front of that torn comic there.

Peter J Lawson (00:39:11):

Isn’t that great?

Leigh Chalker (00:39:12):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s another marble. That dude. There you go. Look at that. Look at some of that artwork. Lovely. Look at the motion man. Look at the storytelling. Good stuff. I like

Peter J Lawson (00:39:23):

It. One of the things I got told after the first issue sat down with the guy and he went through everything. You’ve got to push your action harder, you’ve got to make the motion more. Got to stretch your figures, you’ve got to watch how you’re hitting the edge of flame and all that sort of stuff. Just pushing that action stuff been a real, real big thing for me along with drawing a female character wasn’t doing that. Then I had to sit here and study anatomy more and work all that sort of stuff out.

Leigh Chalker (00:40:02):

Yeah, your hard work man. It does come through because it’s like I’m seeing you do just, I sat down today and just thought I’d draw Wonder Woman and I’m looking at you drawing Wonder Woman and I’m like, man, I’d read that Wonder Woman comic book, I’d read that and I think you’re an excellent female superhero character.

Peter J Lawson (00:40:31):

I still find certain angles I can’t get, but it’s all about growth and working on it. Absolutely. Anyone here tell the same thing? They’ve all got things they don’t think they quite nail and they’re working on it all the time to get that.

Leigh Chalker (00:40:46):

Yeah, yeah. Well man, if you stop learning, I mean, geez, you’ve got to learn every day, don’t you? So you’ve got to keep learning. It’s like there’s no perfection. So you just got to keep rolling man and do the best you can. Put it out, move on to the next one, try and do better

Peter J Lawson (00:41:00):

To my everyone would agree. And my main goal we’ve got is to make the next issue better than the last one.

Leigh Chalker (00:41:07):

That’s right, man, that’s a hundred percent right. Yeah. Yeah. Well I think you’re going in the right direction man. I’m excited to see what’s happening in the torn universe and thankfully after, well the last one I read, man, and Gary, we’ll come back to this later on because occasionally you get a few people I see on the face, not on socials all the time, but we’ve had a chuckle about this before and it’s like torn issue. Like 1093 might come out and then suddenly two months later issue 41 drops mate. So I mean for everyone out there that still has questions about that, there is a reason for this and it does make sense. I’ll let Gary quickly just give you the reason why it’s just out of sequence. So you don’t think it’s all loopy, but why is it out of sequence, Gary? So the people that don’t know, like

Gary Dellar (00:42:10):

It’s a very good way to get a talking piece out there so that we can talk about torn and that’s what it’s working, you see. So at the end of the day, the reason why that was is because I’ve come through DC and Marvel, especially Marvel coming with the, all of a sudden they just stop, the numbering system stopped and then they go to their issue, one of Spider-Man about 20 times with three or four different titles and it gets to the point where a collector cannot keep up with the money or money that’s going out for those comics. So in the wisdom that I had, I decided that, okay, well the idea is to basically we’ve torn and it’s worked with the other ones too, is three story arcs, put ’em all together and have about six or seven creators working on it. So therefore what that gives you is basically up to about 54 products that we’ve got working on and we just release them temporary to let ’em know that a lot of things are happening. So that’s the beauty about it. But we’re basically doing three, so four come out, four will come out, but we’re going to have a massive amount of backlog to really push out. It’s going to be a very interesting way of seeing things.

Leigh Chalker (00:43:30):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m just having Gary, thank you very much for that answer because it does make sense. I mean creatives do take a little bit longer than some to get things out, but the best thing is that it’s out and in the end when all these things catch up, it’s fantastic. But I’ll just let people at home know just because this is the chinwag, we have a little chat going on the side of the screen here that just keeps us all up to date. And I’m not going to embarrass anyone in particular, but at the same time that Gary Della was just talking about pushing issues out there, there was a discussion of someone doing something in their residence that may not have been sorry mate, but it was very amusing. That’s why we were all having a chuckle. I don’t mean to digress, but I want to involve the people because it is all about fun.

(00:44:35):

Are they Dave? You can’t all be serious all the time. You got to have a chuckle and a laugh. This is what makes the beauty of comic book fan the community. So Gary, thank you very much for that answer and I’ve come back to you, man. But everyone please stay involved as we go along because where I’m going to go to right now and we are getting into the thick of it, I’m going to bring the legends all up at the end and they’re all legends really. But I’m doing single file, I’m trying to get the pieces for all the viewers and the listeners together and I’m going to focus right now on one of my great mates who whether he realised or not 12, 18 months ago taught me an awful lot about storytelling. And this is the beauty of collaborating with people and Ben and I, Sy and great name Bella, who was mentioned before, did a little comic book called Ring Around the Rosie and it was pretty scary stuff.

(00:45:35):

None of us had inked each other and it was fun, we didn’t know where it was going, but it was just one of those things that you do because you just liked to draw and write and create stuff and it was really cool. And I remember getting Ben’s pages and I thought, God man, I am way out of my depth here. What am I going to do? So thankfully Ben and I spoke again, killed it, we collaborated and we joined. I just had a great time together and that’s what the fun of it is. So I guess the next person I want to talk to is my great mate, Mr. Ben Sullivan who is, hello buddy, how are you? Yeah, you killed it Lee. You feel Broing well enough to work from man, add bits and pieces to the beauty that was already there.

(00:46:36):

Now you are very much going as we move towards the other guests. You are a very large part of the comic books that are coming up in a Kickstarter that we will talk about that’s coming out in the next couple of months. And funny story, funny story, before we get to that, Ben, when we were doing Rosie and he had those pages, I said to Ben, send me the original pages and he said, I can’t send you the original pages. I’m like, why can’t you send me the original pages? And he said, because I’m drawing on the back of some other pages and they won’t like it if I send you the artwork that’s on the other side. And I said, man, what’s on the other side? And he was like The Southern squadron. And I was like, no, no, no, no, I wouldn’t have done that. I’ll just drop Ben in it. So Ben, you can shout pickles at any stage, but I got to remember it. Mind you, I do like to elaborate such things and do like to play around. Gary taught

Gary Dellar (00:47:44):

A lesson not to do that.

Leigh Chalker (00:47:45):

Oh yeah, on a couple of times. Yeah, yeah, stop. That’s fair enough. I was so close to getting some of those pages too, but oh well it is what it is. Dave. Don’t hurt him. Gary don’t hurt him. It’s like I just blew that out of the water. I bend you on your own. See you later. So mate, now other than the Kickstarter we’re coming up with, you are on Toby and the magic pencil Buzz. So you elaborated before in the newspaper up, done a few issues. Now am I correct in my knowledge that there was also coming has come out, is about to drop a 3D version of one of these comics at some point in the future? Could Ben or Gary possibly elaborate on that?

Gary Dellar (00:48:46):

I think Gary, you

Leigh Chalker (00:48:47):

Should probably talk about the 3D

Gary Dellar (00:48:49):

Aspect of it, I suppose. Yeah, look, sorry about that. I’ll just mention quickly that the 3D Toby has been released

Leigh Chalker (00:48:58):

And

Gary Dellar (00:48:58):

Unfortunately out of the 3D it we’ve probably only got about four or five copies left. So they have sold really well the next big 3D coming out. We’ll see very soon. It’s going to be a really good seller as well. And I can’t say too much yet at the moment because it’s going to be a showcase later on Kickstarter, so wait to see that. But yeah, unfortunately the Toby 3D has been released and basically there’s not many copies left. So it’s sad in one way, but it’s good in another way because most of ’em are sold.

Leigh Chalker (00:49:36):

That’s fantastic, man. Small out there. And that was one of the first 3D comic books in quite some time, wasn’t it for anyone that can answer that because obviously ducked off to his portal over there

Gary Dellar (00:49:51):

Back in,

Leigh Chalker (00:49:53):

That’s

Gary Dellar (00:49:53):

Actually the 3D comic. You can’t. But that is the first 3D comic in Australia that have been produced totally in Australia for the last 40 years.

Leigh Chalker (00:50:09):

Excellent.

Gary Dellar (00:50:09):

That’s a total full, fully drawn Australian comic including ads and everything that’s in 3d. There’s one more that we’re going to put out very soon and that’s going to be part of the 3D new events that’s happening. I like to be a little bit bored and get out there with a lot of the new stuff just as the experimentation to see how it goes and it has worked and we are going to continue that with the next Kickstarter that comes up.

Leigh Chalker (00:50:43):

Yeah, look Gary, the word experimentation takes me back 10 or 15 years. Man, it worked for me. I’m here now. I’ve got a few things wrong with me, but I’m going All right mate, you’ve got to try things, don’t you

Gary Dellar (00:50:59):

Ben? He’s done a wonderful job. I’m very proud of it. Ben is one of the best artists that we’ve got on it. He’s very good at his imagination, which apart from the writing, which he had to put up with his drawing skill and his imagination really outside the ballpark, he’s done a wonderful job with it. Thanks. It’s all happening. It’s one of those things, it’s going to be first available this weekend if we’re lucky if we get the printers all coming through, that’s another thing. So we’ll see what happens. So it might be available at Saturday?

Leigh Chalker (00:51:40):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll get now remember Saturday, that’s the fourth. Yeah, because you’ve got a thing coming up that will let everyone know about too F very

Gary Dellar (00:51:52):

Just again, once again, just quickly before we give you back to Ben and the others, the Ben’s been doing comic for quite a while now and we’ve getting a lot of emails and messages in regards to his work because he’s started to get a little bit of a cold following now. It’s very interesting what’s happening with Ben at the moment. So we’ve started to do letters pages in a lot of the comments now and I don’t want to give him a big head or anything. We won’t get him on the show here next time. We won’t going to see him. But the beauty about it’s a lot of people are writing in about Ben and I think what’s going to really be the icing on the cake is two comics coming up very soon. One is torn Southern Squadron Tina and the other one is Torn Dark Nebula Team Up.

(00:52:39):

Both have his work on it and this is just a bit of a showcase for what’s going to happen with Torn seven Squadron. It’s just a bit of a teaser. The new bit thing about it is that it’s basically, it’s going to be one of those really historic events that’s happening in the last two years with Southern Squadron and torn and dark Nebula of course. And that’s the reason why one, when I started Rabbi in 2018, the one thing I wanted to do is get as many creatives that were passed into new stories and get ’em going again. Really the stories out there are so good, it’s worth getting them back into the groove. Anyway, I’ll give you Ben, go ahead to talk about Toby and then

Ben Sullivan (00:53:33):

You can actually, well got to say this is exactly what EE is to me is being able to do work exactly like that as well with Dave and Tad, of course Rob and Hayden on writing those too. But I dunno, that’s a huge honour for me to be part of that. So just wanted say that to both of you. But my career is actually sort of locked in with Ry. I think I sort of started at the same time you had the Ry second round and I’ve been sort of walking with Ri, I sort of feel walking next to Ry as it’s been growing with. I think the first thing was a cover, which you paid me before I did it and that was the beginning of all of that. Yeah. What do I talk about? Oh Danny, this is another thing about the inventiveness of Gary’s ideas as well to do the 3D thing and having it in the paper as well. That looks amazing. I reckon Danny, that’s the place that comics that should be is that sort of printed thing and that’s awesome. Fantastic. And happy birthday Rob. I didn’t know.

Leigh Chalker (00:55:01):

Well you do now. You do now.

Ben Sullivan (00:55:05):

Alright, so yeah, yeah,

Leigh Chalker (00:55:09):

You prepare to keep talking Ben, because as you talk about Toby and the 3D and like man, what’s blowing my mind is all the things that you guys and Gary in particular are doing and these newsletters and Fan Z and the 3D stuff and the pushing it into newspapers, bringing all creatives together, new, bringing old classic Australian icons back into things we are in a birthing them into new life. The beautiful thing is that I want to push onto right now is Gary identifying people that started at a similar time to I guess me, and that’s my great mate, SPIE, another mate of ours, Hayden, and identified something in them and then said to Tad and said to Dave Dere, I got these two dudes here that I think they got a little bit of something. Would you like to have a yarn to ’em?

(00:55:57):

And then suddenly birthed into things take time, but things gestated and things are all coming together. So you’ve got a moulding of new, and I won’t say old, I would say classic. Alright, let’s go with retro. That’s got a nice bit of fe shui and things going to it. And I think a bit nicer than old is old. It’s a shitty word really, and I don’t like it. So all things can be new again. And that’s what’s happening with Rie at the moment. So Ben, part of what I want to bring into, I want to bring Davey, even though I haven’t spoken to these three gentlemen singularly, I believe right now at this particular point in time, they actually have, this is where they can come together, talk and communicate about their experiences with each other because the next lot of comic books that we want to talk about that is going to kickstart and the next, I believe Gary can correct me, but something inside the next 10, 12 weeks, this all goes well and things are rolling together are these torn and dark Nebula and torn and Southern squadron comic books. So as you can see, everyone is connected. So I’m going to start with my great and mate far away because you’ve been there since the beginning. We were both ads on the back of our first comic books together. So how’s your journey been with Gary and Rie Mate meeting some Hero?

Rob Lisle (00:57:38):

Yeah, well, it’s been the best, for instance, as you are well aware as we’re pretty close. So we tell each other stuff. There was a bit of a glitch in my matrix mid last year and I saw myself almost ready to put comics behind me. I just was having just one of those moments, but I had one convention that I had committed to and I felt weird cancelling it. So I went to Bend Decon and I was seated between Eli and Peter Lane and those guys made me laugh all day long. Eli is an insane person and I just love him. And Pete, of course, we’ve worked together a bunch and I adore him.

(00:58:38):

And weirdly, I think it was the first time I hugged Gary and he doesn’t realise this, but I really needed it because he’s a mentor to me and has been since I joined up with ee. And so to get that little, I don’t know, come here mate, and it just made me feel good. And Dean Rankin, Tim McEwen, there’s a few other guys that were really nice to me that weekend, but it was the re gang that made me feel like I was with buddies that had my back sort of thing. I worked in a comic book shop called Alternate Worlds. I worked there for 11 years. It had its good times and its bad times and whatever, but one of the highlights was this would be 2018 or something. Now Rick McCune and Mira number one both landed on the shelf, unbeknownst to me, Hayden Spar had come and put them on the shelf on a day I wasn’t working.

(00:59:57):

And when I walked in I saw them both. There’s the man there, Hey Hayden. Yeah. And I bought both comics and I read both comics. And what I particularly enjoyed about it was that they were of high quality and they were Australian and they were local and I wanted to be a part of it. I had released a comic book called Badly Beaten Boy in I think maybe 2013, 14 or something. I printed a hundred puppies and then just went, now what? And I still have about 98 copies left. I didn’t know what to do with it.

(01:00:40):

But one thing happened over the creating of it is that my drawing from page one to page 22, there was huge leap in quality within my realm of what I do. There was a huge leap. And so I wanted to do that again, just like I didn’t know what to do with it once it was made, but I wanted to make another comic book. So I sat down and I made The Devil’s Toilet a character that I had created when I was in my teens, heavily inspired by another mentor of mine, Nick May. And so that was sitting on my computer and had been sitting there for a while when I saw this Rick McCune and Mira. So I emailed the dude in the back, Gary Della, and I just said, Hey, I’ve got this comic book I overcompensated. I had studied screenwriting and I’d written two novels.

(01:01:37):

And so I sent him all this stuff. I was just like, I swear I can do stuff, please let me do it. And so he okayed the Devil’s Toilet coming out on Reverie. And then once I liked all the Facebook pages and whatever, there was a line written, something about advertising Rick McClean and it said something like, this world is open and waiting for you to join it or something like that. And I was like, does he mean as a writer? Because, and so I sent him, Hey look, I would love to, I’m not just a toilet guy.

(01:02:17):

My dream would be to write serious things. I just thought that my dopey cartoon style required a silly writing. So yeah, Gary gave me a gig writing a Rick McClean issue. I over compensated, I wrote nine, he said, he said, would you like to try your hand at writing? Torn? We need a new villain. I’ve now written I think 15 issues of torn because once you open the door and let me in, I refuse to leave. It’s too much fun being able to play in these sandboxes. Just today, me and Gary got new pages for a gorilla, my dreams torn team up that I wrote last year. And I wish I could credit the artists. I actually have never met them. It’s all organised through Tim Styles of Gorilla, my dreams. But that hasn’t worn off on me. I’ve been chasing these dreams since I was 17 through music, screenwriting, novels, everything.

(01:03:31):

Just, I’m a creative person and I wanted that to be my job or whatever. And of all the highlights and lowlights and whatever. When I first got thumbnails from Dragon, who, the first issue of Rick that I wrote, I got thumbnails through and I’m on my phone, just happened to get an email from Gary. First thumbnails were through and I looked and I was watching a movie with my wife and I had to pause it and I was screaming with enjoyment. The idea that someone had taken my words and not only turned them into sequential art, but I mean, I wish I could pronounce his last name. I’ll just say Dragon V not only taken my words and drawn them, but he is an expert artist and he had taken these moments and chosen camera angles that are just blew my mind. So yeah, very, very blessed and honoured and grateful.

(01:04:33):

And then of course, I think what I should be talking about is that after writing a handful of these things, Gary presents to me with an idea would I like to write Torn in the southern squadron teaming up with Dave Dre. Now, I wasn’t a huge southern squadron kid, but I knew of them and working at Alternate Worlds, worked for a crazy man named Joe Italiano. And when I mentioned that I was doing that, his mind was so blown that this little idiot that he had employed was doing something like touching comic book history like that. But I was like, alright, this might be more pressure than I anticipated. But credit to Dave, I self-deprecate a lot, particularly about my art style, but I’m somewhat confident in my writing ability. I know my flaws, I know what I’m good at, I know what I’m bad at.

(01:05:41):

The main thing I wanted was to try and hold my own next to a certified OG in Australian comic books. And not only was Dave totally supportive and open to letting me play in his sandbox, but he taught me stuff without never once condescending to me or you know what I mean? I was able to sit under the learning tree, but also, I would happily definitely say I was 50% of that writing team. We jammed for hours on the phone together. At one point, Dave was even, we were sharing a Google Doc and we’re on the phone and I’m typing while Dave’s watching and Dave was like, oh, sorry, this is rude. I shouldn’t be literally watching you type. And I was like, no. It had gotten to a point where we were so comfortable and I feel like a little bit, I was holding my own, but also Dave was so cool about it that I didn’t mind showing my brain farts, you know what I mean? Just like I’m just typing. It’s, it’s a brain dump until we find the right words. And yeah, can’t say enough about the experience. I had an absolute blast.

(01:06:56):

The fact that I got to work with Ben, but I didn’t get to work with Ben is one of the greatest shames of my life. One that I am more than making up for it. Me and Ben, Ben will, sorry, I’m hogging the mic a little bit, but let me pee in some pockets. Ben swears he’s not a writer, which is insane because we are actively trying to work together and we share similar goals and we are meeting regularly and planning out these concepts together. I will propose an idea and with two words, he will make me seem like a genius because he will just say the two words that tie it all together and suddenly I’m just like, he saw an underlining message that, I dunno if I consciously intended, but he found it. And I’m just like, and then just what Ben himself brings to the table, these ideas, I dunno what you think about this, it’s a bit silly.

(01:08:04):

And then presents this fully formed amazing idea. Like Danny said, I fully say Ben is the best and hardest working illustrator in Australia at the moment and a privilege to work with and and I should give kudos too, just while I’ve got the microphone. Peter Lane is someone who invites people into his universe as well, and he pays people to play in his universe. It’s insane. It’s an absolute privilege. And the idea bouncing when you find someone who you can create with comfortably, where you can both just throw things at a wall and yeah, I’m quite opinionated about what I think things should be, but also at the same time, I always disclaimers disclaimer, only take the bits that you agree with and discard the rest. I have no ego attached to it. I just think this is how this should go. And Pete is amazing at flicking things back and forth and on a similar wavelength, this guy up top, Eli, it’s always tricky when you first engage in a creative relationship.

(01:09:23):

You don’t know how receptive people are to ideas and whatever. And within two seconds I was, yeah, Eli and me worked together so well doing lettering on books and stuff, editing books together, an absolute dream and tabling next to him. He’s like, the thing of Lee, you would know this when someone gives you free licence to just throw a thousand jokes, and it doesn’t matter if 99% of ’em don’t land. So being next to Eli, I just throw jokes, throw jokes, and he’s the same. And nine times out of 10 we just go, dude, that would, but then that one time out of 10, we are wetting ourselves. All right, so sorry, long-winded just to say I love everybody. Also in Bendigo, I got to hang out with Tad. We got to talk about doing a Rick McCune issue together. So yeah, got good things to say about everybody. Love everybody. Ry for Life.

Gary Dellar (01:10:30):

I’d just like to check in a thing to reinforce what you’ve said, Bob, with both yourself and working with Ben. It is such a magnificent event when these things happen because the amount of absolutely brilliant creative energy that comes out of it is absolutely mind boggling. And as you know, there’s a project that I’ve got ’em to do now, which is the only persons I can trust to do it. And I’ll show you the cover. And that’s this one here, because at the end of the day, what’s going to happen is I trust them fully with these sort of issues and they would be the only two people that I could trust with the Toby Universe doing an offshoot comic. And this here is basically a comic that is coming out next year about Toby’s cat. So it’s going to be very interesting what the two come up with.

Leigh Chalker (01:11:41):

I’d like to just let you both know Ben, particularly if you’re the artist, there was some reference material you could possibly use that came up earlier this evening on Oh yeah. If you’ve got to get a strange camera angled and you can’t find one on Google images, you might be able to swing back on here. And you’ve got two

Gary Dellar (01:12:05):

Choose from video

Leigh Chalker (01:12:12):

Twos. Yeah, we’ll get you the time check for you too. What I’m seeing here, I love listening to this stuff too. What I’m seeing here before I go to me too for the greats is I’m seeing just, this is what I love about community and stuff, man. It’s like everything working in its flow. It’s like people start, people merge, people come together, there’s dolls, you’ve got toys happening, you got post you got, and Off to human flies, you’ve got Eli doing his first comic books and there’s so much positivity in everything involved and the creativity is quite something. And Gary, Gary, the back of the class mate because it’s like I’ve got two more legends to get through and then it’s open slather. All right, so if you can play with your dolls in the little world, your hands together boss. So just give me a tick.

(01:13:26):

And so I’m going to veer off to right now because I’m going to veer off to the man above Spie and it’s Mr. Dave Devrees. Mr. Dave Dere, thank you for being so patient, you and Tad up there. But I wanted to give you two some time here as well tonight because bringing back in for me with the community and the mentorship we were talking about earlier, and what Gary brings is also, I mean yourself and Tad, and I mean these comics are iconic. I mean, I read ’em as a kid, you put as well as other people of your area in that period of time in the eighties with these characters are iconic. And I don’t think there’s too many Australian comic book creators or people that are collectors that are not aware of the two of you in particular. And just to allow your babies essentially to be vulnerable enough to take these characters and let them live in the hands of other fresher, younger creators and stuff.

(01:14:41):

Man, I think that is one of the greatest things that anyone has done. I’ve seen the growth in my friends from doing that. I’ve seen the growth in allowing both yourself, Dave, you Tad communication, particularly a gentleman that isn’t part of Reverie, but it’s been a great mentor to me, Mr. Gary Shaer and Glen Lumsden and stuff who are all out there that are very forthcoming with your information, very open, allow people to talk ideas, help you through the steps of what you need to do. As Rob said at those times of trouble, we’ve all been there where we’ve had those moments. We were going to throw the pencils away and the typewriters and whatever it is and go. But nice gentle words of instruction and nudges have brought us all back together. Back together. Dave, I guess, and I’ll go to Dave first Tad and I’ll come to you last man and get your answer on this. What, Dave, what was the overall impetus, man that sparked you coming back with the Southern squadron into Australian comic books? Man, you did have a little layoff there for a while, as we all know, you went and did your other things in life and families and teaching and et cetera. So what brought you back, man,

Dave de Vries (01:16:17):

In a word, covid. In all seriousness, look, I’d been to a few comic cons off and on over the years. People were saying they’d like to see what we were doing from the past. And I sort of found that a lot of the time when I was going to those, it felt like I didn’t have anything new to share. And probably the most recent thing I’d done, it’s interesting, SP mentioned, he actually illustrated, I guess a bringing back of the Southern squadron in episode of Decay Comics. And so he actually illustrated that one. And that was back in 2015, tat had sort of been keeping the characters alive by publishing them in this sort of coloured graphic novel Gary Chana was doing, yet another version of them where they were being repackaged for his Cyclone Du or Redux or however that’s now pronounced. So when Covid came along, we were all kind of recreated the Yule Club.

(01:17:29):

And then I met people, well, I guess got in touch with Gary again and I’m not quite sure how we just sort of stumbled upon each other. All was, it was probably just that we were all sitting around bored shitless and not knowing what to do with our time locked away. And since 2015 I’ve been thinking about coming back and doing something with the Southern squadron again. And as I was doing that, I’d sort of started to create this little master plan of how it was going to play out. And I think from memory, I sent Gary some notes and said, this is sort of what I’m thinking of doing, and I really liked what he was doing with Torn, and I thought maybe there could be some sort of crossover. And God bless him, he reached out and said, look, I’d really like to do that.

(01:18:20):

And then he said, would you like to write something yourself or would you like to collaborate with the regular writer? And I said, well, I think I’d like to collaborate. It’d be fun to sort of play with someone else. And while that was going on Tad and I started talking about maybe doing some sort of crossover with the Southern Squadron and Dark Nebula again. And so that became, in the end, it sort of ended up with Tad and I working on a three-part series together. And then me and Gary and Benzie and Ben working on the to Southern Squadron Crossover, which was also a three part. And then we sort of worked out that Ben and Tad and Hayden were going to be doing a three part with. So we thought, well, we’ve got torn dark Nebula torn Southern Squadron, Southern Squadron, dark Nebula. Why don’t we sort of weave it into not one big story but one sort of big event.

(01:19:10):

And I guess that’s sort of where it sort of expanded. Jardine also became interested in doing, I think he even contacted me before that about doing the Southern Squadron Dark. So we thought, let’s throw that in the mix. And somewhere along the line I got, I can’t remember if Peter reached out to me or vice versa, but we started working on a storyline, which I really like actually for Sky’s caravan. And so there were all these different ideas that were sort of flying. I’m also working on rebuilding the Southern Squadron as its own series, but while I’m doing all that, I’m also working on a movie which I’m trying to get finished. And so for the last six months that’s kind of been taking my emphasis simply for one reason that the editor I’m working with, it has to immigrate to Canada in about a week’s time.

(01:20:03):

So all of this was happening simultaneously. And somewhere along the line, I think about three years ago, I wrote a two-part, Rick McClean, which I really enjoyed. It was I sort of borrowed a little bit from Unforgiven this idea that all these villains would all come to the same town at the same time and all try to become out gun sling Rick McLoan. And there was a film that was called The Quick and the Dead, which was directed by Sam Raey, which I really liked. There was little, so every villain was sort of super slightly larger than life and very kind of, what’s the word? Iconic. So during the course of that, I tried not to kill. I thought they might be fun to bring back in different elements. So at some point I’d love to do a Southern Squadron, Rick McClean. So all of this was just, I don’t know, long answer to a short question.

(01:20:59):

But yeah, I guess it just became fun. And I think also the motivation was that Tad and I suddenly realised that holy shit, last year was what the Southern Squadron celebrated their 40th anniversary. I should have done some big event, but I didn’t. And then the year before, tad did the 40th anniversary of Dark Nebula and 40 years is quite a while. And I was thinking when I first got into reading comics in the eighties, I was a big fan of the Marvel stuff and probably my favourite book was one of their first superhero books, which was the Fantastic four. And when Southern Squadron was created was in 83. Fantastic Four was created what, 1961 I think it was. So that was only, I was inspired by stuff that was happening in Marvel that had only happened maybe 22 years prior. And to think now that if you go back to the Birth of Marble, that two thirds of that length, Southern Squadron and Dark Nebula have been sort of in Australia, been running for that a long time, you start to think, shit, this is quite a while we’ve been doing this.

(01:22:16):

I mean, Christ when I started Batman was started in 38. I haven’t done the maths on this, but it would’ve been about 50 years. You start to think 40 years is a very long time. And so part of it, it felt like they were a piece of Australian comic history and maybe it was sort of silly to leave them in the draw. And at some point I’d like to see the characters when I’m six foot under still being played with other creators. So to some extent there was a little bit Lee of a motivation of bringing them back and allowing other people to play with ’em so that they become sort of part of the collective. When Tad and I were working with the other guys from Glenn and Gary and Alex and the others from the cyclone era, one of the things which I think made that era work was that we were all sharing each other’s characters and collaborating.

(01:23:16):

And then as I think can’t remember who mentioned Jason Paul. Oh, you did? Jason Paul was doing stuff with us and I’ve lost Can how many times other people had the Southern Squadron in their storylines or worked on them more and probably more than the so-called Canon that I did. And yeah, I really liked that. I really liked the thought that there is this rich history of Australian comics and this sort of weird shared universe that I guess with torn when Gary brought me in. And then Tedd sort of came in as well and then indirectly comes in as well. And then of course through that we’re connected to Gary Chana and through Gary er we’re connected to, he’s crossed over with Klarus, so that means that Klarus is now in the same universe and then the platypus has appeared and here but the hippos. So that’s part of the same when you start to sort of piece it together, all these characters have all appeared in each other’s books and there’s big Australian universe of superhero characters. It kind of felt like it was something I wanted to play in.

Leigh Chalker (01:24:27):

Yeah, no, that’s cool, man. No, that’s cool because it seems to be the perfect fit, rev from what we’ve discussed tonight with everyone learning and playing in each other’s sandboxes, as you said, bringing characters in and being free to allow other people to grow in those characters and try things and stuff. And man, I think it’s just added to the creativity and creativity is a good thing. I mean, anyone that’s watched this show would know that creativity saved my life, man. So it’s like if people want to be creative and they want to grow and they want to dabble and stuff like that, I mean God do it a hundred percent. Everyone needs something and creativity is a beautiful thing, man. So Dave, awesome man, that you allowed my friends to do that in your world and it’s awesome that you’re going to allow other people that hopefully one day will be my friends or friends of theirs and friends of yours to play with your classic characters too. Well,

Dave de Vries (01:25:24):

I’d give a big rap to Gary. I think he’s kind of the glue that’s binding it together and sizzle as well. I mean there is this sense of community and a sense of everybody looking out for each other and supporting each other, and I think that’s really super important. But I know Gary sort of really has a huge, sorry, Gary talking about union presence, but he’s got this huge passion for the history of Australian comics and the past, and I mean I guess through the Southern squadron we had the Crimson Comet in there as well. So that sort of links back to that era as well. And then Gary appropriated Moller the Mighty. So they’ve all kind of snuck in there at some point. And I think it is a rich history and I’m glad that it’s not getting lost. It’s not being forgotten.

Leigh Chalker (01:26:23):

Yeah, yeah. Well there’s plenty of creatives here that are bubble and away trying to keep it alive man with you. So it’s like that’s the best thing and that’s definitely what Comex, not just Ry, but Comex as well. Definitely promote and push as well as keeping Australian comics and creatives alive and all that. And let’s not suggest to anyone that’s coming across the Chinwag podcast for the first time and has heard me say that line and may take it out of context because if anyone knows me, my catchphrase is community is unity. And quite frankly, I don’t care whether you’re Ry or Comics or Oz Comics or Jolt or wherever, I’m just proud to be part of the Australian comic book community and that’s what I enjoy most about doing these shows and talking to you guys and singing what everyone’s doing. And I want people to get motivated by what they’re hearing and singing on this site and screen tonight and all the other sites that are out there because this is only a fraction of the great stuff that’s out there from man.

(01:27:35):

There’s the guy said from forties and earlier through to now and future and beyond, man. So jump on the board and have a look at all these sites and check them out. Now I’m going to just leave you there, Dave, because I want to talk to Tad because once I’ve finished with Tad and I’ve introduced everyone, I’m going to ask you all what I think while I’ve got such a big group of collective One question and I want everyone to chime in on this, so we’ll be a chinwag for a period of time. But mate, you and I have talked in great detail and as we know you were my first Australian comic book back in my day that blew my mind with you and Paul lost and stuff. And I’m a particular fan of the Grandstand and what I enjoyed most about him. But man, you’ve come back with a real explosion of creativity too, man. You’ve held onto the dream for a long time as well, man, like Dave and had it inkling. You’ve had comic books by Shane Foley and stuff sitting aside for 20, 25 years that you’ve brought back out and now you’ve brought an end to one of your classic theories and stuff and pushing on into more. Hayden has worked with you and you’ve had Ben. What were your feelings of handing over dark Nebula or here it is Hayden, when Gary came to you, were you feeling similar to Dave or your own machinations behind that thought process?

Tad Pietrzykowski (01:29:22):

Well, Hayden and I worked on the plot for Dark Nebula torn, and that was a real collaboration in terms of plot. But the way I looked at it, the way I looked at that series is simply this. There’s all the glory in the world of having created the dark nebula, let Hayden and Ben Shine. So as far as the script goes, all I’m really doing is signing off on it. Any little bits and pieces I might need reviewing or whatever, or very minor editing, that’s what that’s about. But one very important thing I think everyone can take away with them is simply this. You park your ego at the door and make sure that the project does not suffer if you get in its way. I think that’s so important. If ego gets in the way, the book’s rooted, that’s all there is to it.

(01:30:34):

And I think if everyone’s allowed a little bit of elbow room that they feel like they’re really contributing to this, not that, oh, I’ve got to watch what I do otherwise I don’t want to rock the boat. No, screw that. It’s important that everyone feels like they’re a part of the process. And that’s why I like to see dark nebula torn or torn, dark nebula, whichever way you want to call it as being basically Hayden and Ben can just rock with it. I mean, the story that we’ve got, I mean you’ve got two characters. They’re oil and water, they will not mix. They do not mix yet in this story, in this adventure that they find themselves having to work with one another. They have to mix. And something happens in the third part that really turns things around. I won’t even hint at what it is, but it’s a very significant moment, particularly for Torn, and it really is that’s significant that it shows that there’s something more than differences that people have with one another.

(01:31:56):

And that’s really what that’s about. And if anything that in its own way is us illustrating how this process works, even if not that we don’t get on or anything like that, we get on famously, we all get on famously, we know that we pump enough positive energy into this thing. Of course it’s going to be successful, of course it’s going to be the best thing you could put out. But like I said, you park your ego at the door and you make sure that the book does not suffer. And that’s how I see that. And I couldn’t convey that enough to Hayden and Ben because the truth of the matter is I just don’t want them thinking that if they’re walking on eggs, don’t hop to take a line from Blue Thunder.

(01:32:53):

So yeah, that’s how I view that. And I think it’s great that when we do collaborate with one another, we feel comfortable with one another. We don’t take any, we don’t make any assumptions. I mean, if I can pivot to the work I’m doing on Torn Danny, when you did your review of Torn three and you got to me, you said the two words that I thought, wow, you’ve pitted the ace on it. You referred to me as a script doctor, and that is hitting the nail right on the head with torn three. I felt that it needed a script, doctor, my role as an editor is that of giving the writer’s voice clarity, no more, no less.

(01:33:51):

But yeah, torn three was a different situation, and I looked at that in much the same way. And this is me going back to the earlier days of Dark Nebula when Glen Luton turned in the artwork for Dark Nebula three. I’ve got to be honest, that’s when the lights really came on for me because that artwork just took it to the next level. And I thought, you know what? I could do one of two things here. I could turn in a very lame Jerry Conway like script where I could really out of town here and have fun with this. I went with option two. Well, looking at Pete’s artwork on torn three, it deserved the best script possible. It deserved to really shine because there’s a very important thing I think we all need to carry away with us. We don’t know how long we’ve got to tell these stories.

(01:34:51):

So make every story, every page, every panel matter, move your story along and make sure that when people pick that up that they’re not going to just discard it to one side. Because one thing I always joke with people is I’m glad that my stuff is more memorable than landfill because that’s my way of saying I don’t have a big head about this, but the truth of the matter is we don’t know how long we’ve got to tell these stories, so let’s land every punch we can. Let’s make sure that we connect with someone with these stories we are telling and they come away. And here we are. We’re saying 40 plus years of dark nebula and the squadron and everything like that. How about the next 40? Let’s look at that. And that’s why it’s great to be able to work with young creators like with Spie, with Hayden, with Ben, with Peter, both Peters actually one Peter’s just as old as the rest of us, but that’s another story. I’m just kidding. And actually just pivoting again, Peter Lawson, you mentioned the feedback you got from torn three. I think the best feedback you got from torn three is, Hey, how would you like to draw the human fly? I’m sorry, that’s a mic drop moment because holy crap, congratulations. That’s all I got to say. Every one of us in the room, we are, we’re not astonished you deserve it, but it’s great. It’s great to see that you are getting recognised and that’s what this is all about. That’s been a lot of money, but

Leigh Chalker (01:36:49):

I think you’re a hundred percent right there with Tad. I mean, if anyone takes anything away from this tonight, you can see Peter in a nutshell, Lawson’s tail of starting on torn issue. One, work in his butt off as we’ve all seen any shares, his pictures and stuff, improving, improving, improving, getting the torn three and then getting what is possibly is a dream of his that he’s probably been thinking about since a little kid. You know what I mean? And he’s had an opportunity. And I mean, man, that to me sounds like pretty awesome story there, mate. You know what I mean? And a hundred percent on you, I hope you kick its butt and do all the good things too. But you’re a hundred percent right Tad. I think what you said there, they’re inspiring things too because the other great thing about having you and Dave on the show here tonight, talking and speaking to people that maybe thinking about comic books and maybe thinking about coming into it, you know what I mean?

(01:37:55):

And Eli’s touched on it with you with a little bit and talking to you and things, and I’m just going to take myself as a prime example. I don’t want to use anyone else as an example. I’m going to use me. When I came into this, I had an ego at the size of a football field because I came from a small country town and I thought I was top stuff. No one can draw like me. I know what I’m doing. Well, you know what? I didn’t know what I was doing. And if it hadn’t have been for people like Tad and Gary and like Spie and Ben showing me up and Gary Eleanor in the background and varying other people improvements and further love and a ferocity of wanting to learn and get better at my craft and eventually that learning in there and dedication to the craft seeped its way into I guess my life and stuff like that.

(01:38:54):

And in a strange way, being part of this community has not just helped me with comic books and drawing in general. I’ve been able to get sober due to having some of these people that are on the screen right now in my life and being able to partake in what I’m doing and people in the background. And so it’s I guess not just the creative webs that link people working together from 40 years ago to now and new blood coming on, like retro characters and new characters and all these beautiful things to create the wonderful Tree of Australian comic book creativity. There’s a whole heap of other things that go on back there too. People become friends, people help each other. They’ve got someone to lean on because sometimes you can be that lone person out there in those little far off areas of Australia or wherever you are in the world, and it just gives you access to people with things like you do.

(01:39:51):

And you never know where it will take you. And I think here’s a prime example of a group of individuals that through the common bond of comic books, creativity and enjoyment and a love of, I guess a hobby, a career to some extent, or just a compulsion to complete something because something within them is crying out to something else has got them to create this awesome little band of creatives here that are pumping out stuff left, right and centre. And it’s a great thing and it culminates in Peter J. Lawson beautiful story of starting on torn issue one after many years of not doing a comic book and getting the human fly. So you’re seeing dreams of all different levels of success happen to people, man. And I think that’s a beautiful thing. So that’s what I think is wonderful. Now, I thank you Tab, you are a champion as always. Thank you. If I could just add one more thing, torn

Tad Pietrzykowski (01:40:53):

Four is going to kick torn three’s butt

Leigh Chalker (01:40:58):

Cannot wait, man,

Tad Pietrzykowski (01:41:01):

I’m not kidding with you on that. Peter’s actually started turning in the pages for editing, and I just said to him, this is going to be a snack because it obviously needs editing. But I’m looking forward to seeing all the artwork. I mean, I’ve seen the smatterings of it as everyone else has on Facebook, but what I have seen of it is nothing short of sensational. And I’m looking forward to making sure that the words do the images justice because a picture paints a thousand words. Why drown a picture with an extra thousand words? The purpose of the writing is simply to get the art over the line. It doesn’t need to be drowned out with a whole lot of waffle, let the artwork breathe. And that’s what we’ve done with torn three, and that’s what I fully intend to see happen with torn four. So anyway, that’s enough out of me on that.

Leigh Chalker (01:42:09):

Very good. Now while I’ve got all of you here and we’re all in varying degrees of publishing and creating and history and all of these things, first time, like long time in between times, what’s everyone and absolutely, I’m throwing it open, right? You answer as you want to come in first. You chat amongst yourselves, you do everything you want. What do you think right now currently

(01:42:44):

Is the present and future of Australian comic books, the medium health-wise? Is there something more? What direction do you think it’s going? I mean, what’s the overall feeling from everyone’s experiences and feelings? Lay it out there. Let’s go. I’ll go first. Mansion. I think that Australian comic books, comic books in general probably not seem in the same light by the general populace as what they once were by any of us on the screen. That’s why I think that it’s extremely, I see a lot of negativity. I see quite a great deal of toxicity in other countries, comic book communities. I see elements of it creeping into the Australian comic book community. And quite honestly, I don’t really have time for it, man. I just don’t understand why people aren’t working in the same direction because such a wonderful medium, active, alive in people’s faces. You do have a rich history in Australia.

(01:43:51):

You’ve got people that are all like have been overseas. There’s two people here that have done it chosen. You’ve got Peter Lawson living his dreams. You’ve got sped Z as a young fellow doing things, Ben, you’ve got Danny Nolan studying the history. You’ve got Gary over here publishing. You’ve got comics in the background, bringing people together in a community. And I just think sometimes that people need to put their negativity aside and start being a little bit more kinder to the people in the community applaud work as opposed to criticising it because a lot of the squeaky wheels that I hear aren’t doing anything. And I just find it really disappointing squeaking because I’d be more than happy to listen to a lot of them if they did something. And I don’t see the strength or the unity that being negative brings to a medium that is working right now with a lot of positivity to get it out there alive and pushing. And that is my thought. Toxicity is an awful thing. That’s just me,

Rob Lisle (01:44:56):

Lee. I didn’t think of it from that perspective when you asked the question, but I think you hit a nail on the head. I know when someone asked my sister-in-Law when she was having her first child, why would you bring a baby into this world with how crazy it is? And she said, well, why not bring in another soldier for good sort of thing? And that just sound like a cool poetic line, but I think I’ve peed in your pocket about chinwag and I’ll pee in my own with drink and draw and all the shows on the comics network is that we are trying to be soldiers for positivity. And it is hard. It doesn’t get as many clicks as the hate bait does, but also nothing’s really gained by being a jerk.

(01:45:59):

I have said that in the music biz, there were lots of jerks. And when I came to comics I was like, whoa, everyone’s so inviting and lovely. I was a bit naive with that. I think I stumbled into two very welcoming communities with reverie and Comex. But slowly but surely you do work out. There are negative jerks that perhaps jealousy or something dictates the way they treat others. And you very quickly see though what happens to those jerks. If you are nice and you are kind and you have no ego about these things, you get to work with fellow nice, kind, amazing creators, and you learn how to get better at the thing that you are desperate to do. So yeah, I don’t see any benefit in being negative at all. The state of comic books.

Dave de Vries (01:47:07):

When was there a better time in history to be alive than today?

Rob Lisle (01:47:13):

I would’ve made a pretty sweet court jester back in mediaeval times.

Dave de Vries (01:47:17):

And that’s why when I hear people like that saying to your sister, why would you bring a child into the world now? I’d be saying, because this is the greatest time in history so far. Look, if he wants to check out, that’s fine, but I think your niece or nephew is going to have a fantastic life. And no, I think the world gets better and better and better. And I think the thing is people like to compare the worst of today with the best of the past, but in any objective measure, I mean God, all this crap even about saying that the world’s population’s getting too big as though there is a direct correlation between the size of the population and the increased life expectancy and the improvement of living standards. Why are we frightened about the future? I just do not understand this. In fact, I’m worried about the population shrinking.

(01:48:13):

We live in an amazing time in history. We all walk around with a fricking computer that could get you to the moon. Back in the sixties in our pocket, God, when I wanted to listen to a bit of music back in the seventies, I had to buy an album and it cost me the equivalent of 70 bucks in a day’s money. Now you just listen to it for free at a whim. Everything that you want to access in the world is amazingly cheap. And as creators, when we started out, we had to basically pony up the equivalent of about 10 to $15,000 and hope that we would not lose more than a third of that money. And now you can print a comic and get your money back. The opportunities, I think the trouble is people just don’t want to take risks anymore. I think I’m becoming my father now, but we are getting soft as a community.

(01:49:02):

But seriously, every time Cyclone went to print, I think we dropped initially the equivalent of maybe about five grand Australian today. Imagine if you said, rod, I’m going to print up the equivalent of $5,000 worth of comics and give ’em away for free just to build up a marketplace. You would’ve been doing the equivalent of what we did back then. And most people shit themselves if they drop a few hundred bucks. So no, I think the opportunities are there. The potential is huge. The ability to print is amazing. The talent is absolutely there. I mean, the advantage you guys have is you’ve got us to look back on and say, oh, well they did it when we were doing it. We looked back 15 years earlier and it was Skippy, the Bush kangaroo. That was it. I mean, there’s a history, there’s this connection there.

(01:49:49):

I mean, the reason why we formed Cyclone was because we were the only people doing it and fantastic as well. Now, I couldn’t even name you how many people are in the scene. Sorry, I didn’t mean to overtalk you, but I think the Lee, the potential is huge. It’s just whether or you want it, that’s all. But here’s the great thing. Even if three quarters, or even if 90% of the people are miserable and want to be negative, it gives a shit because they’re still, the ones who aren’t, are still massively outnumbering the people doing it back in the day and positive people, they’re the ones who will be sticking around in five years. And the negative people, they always fall, by the way. So they just do. Yeah,

Gary Dellar (01:50:33):

I agree. I agree. And I’d just like to intervene here. Absolutely. The beauty about it is when Danny was talking about Toby in the papers and the basic fact that say 12 months ago, a lot of the people were dropping it. Look, I’ve been asked on probably four or five occasions that they would like a Rick MacClean and a torn newspaper strip. I haven’t got the ability to do it, but that’s what I get asked. So it’s still out there and it’s what people can supply to these newspapers that they’ll take ’em on. And talking about comics nowadays, if you look at it in perspective, back in the early days when you had Marvel and all that, there was a very small amount. There were larger companies of course, but when you looked at the indie side of things, it was very, very small. There was a lot of underground comics, but there was virtual and it was hard to sell ’em back then because there was a lot more.

(01:51:29):

You had to do paper runs, you actually had to do stale mail, you had to hook up with a lot of the fan signs at the time, which was hard in a lot of cases come out, they folded new one come out. So that was hard. But now if you look at it in perspective, the amount of comics coming out now in this time is absolutely incredible. Kickstarter is a good example of that, and that’s just one of ’em. And that’s just a small part of the cake really in one sense. And what’s happening is getting back to say the baby issue. I’ll go completely different. There’s people calling now down for because they want to get to the top, and a lot of ’em die doing that, which is not a good thing, of course, but at least it’s there. They want to do it, they’re happy to do it.

(01:52:19):

It’s a great challenge and they do it and they enjoy it. That’s the main thing. And it’s a bit like just everybody that I know, it’s a hobby to a certain extent because you’re doing it for the fun of it. You like other people reading your stuff. So it’s fantastic that way. And in my case, I go extreme and to promote a lot of the older comics as well because we’ve got a magnificent history in Australia, which people don’t realise, and most of us only touched the very tip of the iceberg when they talk about that because there’s so much information out there that it’s not funny. But just with our general groups now and what’s happening out there, you’re very right in a lot of ways. There is so many comics coming out now that is not funny. And when you’re looking at people now, the positive amount of people out there, they’re going to be around for a while because they know the situation, they know what it’s like.

(01:53:15):

A lot of them are negative because they, oh, I’m going to get rich because I’m going to put out this comic. They put it out there, whoop, we’ve got to go and promote it. We’ve got to sell it. Oops, I dunno. Oh, that’s a bit rough. We’ve got to go here, we’ve got to go here. Go to South Australia. Look, I’ve been to Perth, I’ve been to Northern Territory, I’ve been to Brisbane with tables. And it’s not because of the cost of it, it’s because it’s damn good fun going to those places, talking to a lot of creatives and of course selling your comments if you can. That’s the beauty about it too. But it’s such a massive social environment. It’s not funny. And the majority of them are very good people and that’s what makes it worth

Dave de Vries (01:53:55):

Lee. You need to do the 10,000 hours. That’s the simple truth of the matter. And I think a lot of people want to skip that stage. It takes 10,000 hours not just to build up your skill and your talent, but also you need to do that to build up your relationship with the audience. A mate of mine, Daniel Best actually created, did this book about the history of Todd McFarlane and how Todd got into the business. Todd was a mate of mine back in the nineties, and he put in his 10,000 hours. He was like the Beatles. They didn’t become overnight successes, but people forget that bit. Success comes from, look, put it this way, I’ve never known anybody to fail If they persevered long enough, if you just stick at it long enough, you will succeed. The reason is most people, they often get a little bit of a taste very, very, very, very early on in the piece.

(01:54:56):

And then they think, oh, that’s cool, and it’s going to get better and better and better. Exponentially no, sometimes it’s just a long slow grind. But you learn your craft, you develop it, you draw. I mean, I know Pete and Ben will be superstars, not that they aren’t already well on the way because you guys just aren’t stopping. You just keep going. And that’s the same, same with you, sps, same with you, Pete, gentlemen, Danny and Eli. I dunno you very well, but it’s just keep it, keep doing it. And it is really just simple as that. The thing is, 10,000 hours is a lot of work. It’s like if you start to think about it, you add up 40 hours a week and basically it’s full time for five years. Very few people can afford to do that, do that. If you can sneak 20 hours a week, rain or shine, it’s going to take you almost 10 years to get there.

(01:55:52):

But then when you look at the people who are huge successes in the music industry or huge successes in film, most of the time they don’t do it in their mid to twenties. And the few that do are usually child stars who got older and they did their 10,000 hours from the age of seven to the age of 17. Most people, it’s in their mid thirties before they really bite. And that’s just spending every spare inch you’ve got in your twenties making this happen. So that’s why some people succeed and some people don’t. It’s just simply because the ones who don’t, the journey’s too hard, but all you’ve got to do is hang in there long enough and you will succeed. I have not known anybody who persevered long enough who did not succeed. It’s really that simple, but it’s that hard as well.

Peter J Lawson (01:56:37):

The other, sorry, you got to park your ego at the door while you’re at it. If you start up, well,

Dave de Vries (01:56:46):

That’s not going to happen.

Peter J Lawson (01:56:49):

Some people don’t do that, know everything, nothing. And you’ll never know anything. You’ve got to be prepared to take feedback from other people and sometimes it might not be good. Learn from that.

Dave de Vries (01:57:05):

I talked about this to my students at uni because I teach a little bit of comics there and it’s that people dunno what they dunno. When the Yule Club started up in Sydney, it was really common that Glenn and I would be there and we’d be talking about our experiences with the Yanks and then we’d have locals who would come in and they would look at an American and they would compare four things that the American did with four things that they did the same four things and they would be better than the yank and three out of the four and they would be probably line ball on the fourth one. And they go, this is ridiculous. Why is this guy getting work and I’m not, I’m better than them. And three out of the four things that matter and the answer is because it’s not for this bloody 10, you don’t even know about the other six.

(01:57:47):

There’s your problem. It’s like you dunno what you don’t know. And that’s usually what causes people to fail. They think they’ve got the answer, but they dunno what they don’t know. And sometimes it’s those mundane, boring things like solid storytelling and pacing and sometimes during the poster shots isn’t the answer. So it’s just, but if you keep going at it long enough, I remember, I can’t remember if it was our third or fourth trip, Glen and I had cracked most of the companies but not Marvel and we’re going, what do we got to do? And the answer was, you just got to get better. And then one day suddenly discovered what the other three were that you’d missed out on and it really just comes over. Then you’d know this as an artist that just every once in a while something clicks and you go, oh shit, I didn’t even know that was part of my repertoire. And then suddenly

Peter J Lawson (01:58:38):

You open up

Ben Sullivan (01:58:40):

2% of the time maybe if you’re lucky, it’s rare. You keep going, just keep walking. Absolutely.

Gary Dellar (01:58:51):

The other good indicator of the situation at the moment is zines. There’s such a massive creative outlet out there that we’ve seen the photocopying and drawing a lot of things now. It’s just incredible in Melbourne. There’s so much out there and that’s a good indication of how popular a lot of this sort of creative activity is going. But

Danny Nolan (01:59:12):

That’s always been there. Gary, there’s decades. Yeah,

Gary Dellar (01:59:18):

It has

Danny Nolan (01:59:19):

Comics. Do you find that there is the difference between comics now and comics will say, we’ll go to the eighties, is there’s no longer presently a mainstream. It just seems to be

Gary Dellar (01:59:37):

The eighties,

Danny Nolan (01:59:39):

What’s happening? You can forget the popularity. There is no standout comic. That’s just kind of like, I know even music’s the same at the moment. My son’s in a popular band in Melbourne. But to fill up, get 200 people into a place that’s considered great these days. We used to go out in the seventies from Tuesday to Saturday, there’d be bands on the radio and you’d be hanging off the rafters. You couldn’t even get into the bath for a drink all that time. At least even them, there’s something that there’s no person or thing that is just going to take off overnight. So it seems like a very level playing field, but there’s no superstars. Everyone seems to be on a level playing ground. And because of that, that’s how these communities have built up. It’s hard to describe, but can anyone tell me an Australian comic that has sold in huge numbers in the last two decades? I’m going to say Toby’s probably the biggest one. Well,

Leigh Chalker (02:00:55):

Two decades, I might be wrong, but you’d have to say Dylan Nailers Dar and Bill stuff in the

Danny Nolan (02:01:01):

Show. Yeah, but that had the show Bagg distribution. There’s no distribution anymore. There’s no news agents, there’s no Gordon and Gotch from the seventies. Dylan, his stuff in the early nineties did have the show. He was placed in show bags and he also had kid zones, which used to be on the checkout of the supermarkets, but that’s not happening now. I think that was the last great big seller. So

Gary Dellar (02:01:35):

I think Dylan’s comic Danny would be one of the biggest sales sellers in Australia at those. You talked about the timeline.

Danny Nolan (02:01:44):

I love that timeline. Yeah. Yeah.

Gary Dellar (02:01:46):

He had a very good distribution system through the shared banks,

Danny Nolan (02:01:51):

The

Gary Dellar (02:01:51):

Seventies and eighties and the early nineties. You still had distribution here, but there wasn’t that many people that would be willing to risk it going through Gordon and got to all the other distributors, no distributors. And if you refer it back to the music industry, there was a lot. And the same consequences were happening is that you had so many pubs here. You could go to any pub and have a good band, but now

Danny Nolan (02:02:16):

What’s the radio stations? You just don’t even to have

Gary Dellar (02:02:20):

The distribution was basically bands through the pubs what got ’em famous, they got a following and that was it. Comics were the same. The ones that went into the Gordon and got, they had a fairly good distribution. And I’m not talking just about Ry, I’m talking about all the others. At least they sold them because there wasn’t many Australians out there at the time. And referring back to the music industry, the same principle was that there was a lot of pubs in, but what happened with all of them, the distribution dried up. There’s nothing, pubs don’t

Danny Nolan (02:02:51):

What that whole area of distribution of marketplace is gone now, so it’s harder to find your market. The young people these days don’t seem to be interested in anything tactile.

Gary Dellar (02:03:07):

They do. They do. Because I’ll tell you something, we’ve, before Covid of course there was many events that the libraries would open up that give you free tables and you’ll take your comics in there. We sold a hell of a lot of IES back then through Covid. We were lucky because we got those sales, but just, which I don’t talk about too much in the sense that a lot of the comics that we do now I do on the side and I keep it quiet because what happens is when a school approaches me and says, look, I’ve got to hold the kids here. Can you put out a comic for us? It looks really good if it looks like it’s like Rev publications. So it really gets the kids excited when they can see all this stuff printed. So what happens is I’d go and print 40 comments for it and send it into ’em and those kids will be wrapped.

(02:03:56):

And so far I’ve done about 15 of those so far. So it is happening out there and it’s a good event and it is growing. The only really recognition I can give to people now is the studio now in which I put out their comic as well, which is they gave me permission to basically showcase that as well. Whereas the schools can’t, it’s a privacy thing with the kids, but they can do it in class if you know what I mean. So they can do it away. But it is growing out there. And a lot of the families, believe it or not, we all grew up with comics. We read comics, some of us learned how to read out of it, et cetera, et cetera. But that’s what the trend is. Slowly going back to it. I say it’s probably only 5%, but it was nothing before that everybody was on their computer, the TV skateboards and stuff like that. But it is growing slowly. So it’s happening out there, but it’s going to be a very long process. But with that long process, that’s going to give you the 10,000 hours so that maybe later on, if you’re still around, you’ll do well.

Danny Nolan (02:05:10):

Well that’s good because I leave us up with the paper was our goal. To me it just looked like comics had disappeared except for a couple of phantoms. That’s all you’d ever see in, well, there aren’t even news agents anymore. There’s a few kiosks and that was all it was. But that’s very encouraging news from you because before

Gary Dellar (02:05:37):

It’s, if we ever have a Danny, sorry, if we ever have a conversation that we just focus on this sort of topic, I can give you probably 30 creatives that have done comics that are now well above everybody else.

Leigh Chalker (02:05:57):

Gary Sch just sent in a comment, ifs can bring that back up. That gave Trudy Cooper’s Ogle is huge and never landers with the question mark, but

Danny Nolan (02:06:08):

Never, Landers had a major publication company and that was almost a book that is a fantastic comic that had a lot of money behind it.

Leigh Chalker (02:06:21):

So would you think when you’re suggesting that independent, this independence and mainstream that obviously with Neverland is we’re getting to a point where it was, if you got into a news agent as a comic book, it was fantastic, but for me, what I’m looking at is I’m seeing that the emphasis on the emphasis seems to be on trade paperbacks and getting them into your bookstore or emmic or something like that. What

Danny Nolan (02:06:53):

I’m saying is there’s no real mainstream, everybody’s independent and because of that there seems to be more of a community. But is it shrunk? I think you’ve got a lot more choice. It just seems to be a lot smaller than what it was. And I think that is something to aim for the future, that it will grow. Maybe the kids will be like, every generation changes things and who knows, maybe comics will become what vinyl has become. All of a sudden everyone will think, oh, I think they got that right the first time, didn’t they? I might go down the comic shop.

Tad Pietrzykowski (02:07:43):

Interesting that a moment ago, the word literacy was brought into it. And I think that’s a very important thing there we go through waves where the focus is on trying to promote literacy. This goes back way before our time as well. When they did the Australian pictorial social studies, who my partner’s dad was the art director of them, a fellow by the name of Ken Raffe. Now back then, back in the fifties, they put these things out because kids weren’t reading. And so they gave them education in the form of these comic books. And a lot of people, a lot of creatives got to do work on them, including Monty. These were paying gigs. Some of the guys, I’m not familiar with their names, maybe they were going under non plumes. But then we have our different waves throughout the course of our, I would love to say industry, but there’s no industry in this country.

(02:08:57):

It’s more like a guild. It’s more like a club than anything else. But kids today, right now can go online, go to the dark nebula.com and they can read adventures for free. Now, if that’s not helping to promote literacy, I dunno what is, but pivoting, we’re talking about kids with their handhelds and everything. I remember this friend of mine, she was the manager of the community radio station I was at for a great many years, and I just thought, I’m just going to give her a copy of one of my books for his son to read. And it was an interesting reaction in that he didn’t know what it was. It was one of my colour trades and he is trying to figure out what to do with it because it wasn’t a handheld, it wasn’t a computer. It was like there he was all digital and here it was analogue.

(02:10:00):

And it told me then, and this is going back maybe 10 years ago or so, or maybe not even that far, that a lot of this is lost on kids and I would like to that we’re going to have that paradigm, as you said a short while ago, Danny, where it comes back around and kids start reading again. Because I’ve noticed a lot of libraries do have their graphic novel section and a lot of us, us, we learned to read through comics. I mean, when I was five, six years old, people wanted to know what I learned from comics and I knew that there were such cool words like amazing, fantastic, incredible invincible, fantastic, all of these words that all I knew was they meant something cool.

(02:10:58):

And that was me elevating my vocabulary because of what I was picking up in the comics that if I can, if you just indulge me one more story. Back when I was married, my ex-wife was a school teacher and I gave her a heap of comics for her kids to read in class to help promote literacy and there was one kid who wouldn’t even read comics. All he was into was skateboards and she didn’t know what to do with him. And I remembered there was a dreadful Neil Adams comic called Skate Man and I had a copy of it because it had a Paul Power backup story in it. So I pulled this book out and I said to her, here, put this under his nose. The kid devoured it, then he moved on to the other comics and he eventually got onto literacy. He was reading books after that and that’s the progression. It’s just a matter of how do we get that cycle happening again,

Dave de Vries (02:12:10):

To be honest, I don’t want to create comics to help kids learn how to read. That’s not my motivation. I mean if that happens well and good, but that’s, that’s not the main game for me and Danny, I guess the argument would be, look, the reason why Cyclone was successful in the eighties, we had a very clear idea of who our audience was and how to reach them. And when I say clear idea, we were constantly looking for ways to improve that approach. The various techniques that we use to achieve it weren’t always perfect at the beginning, but we refined it over time when we got better and better and better. But what we did have going for us was we knew what people wanted back then. I dunno if this is true today, but at that time, Australia in the eighties was feeling very left out of it and then suddenly things like Dundee happened and Mad Max happened.

(02:13:04):

That was late seventies and in excess. Suddenly we had a hot band and suddenly people in the rest of the world gave a shit about who we were and we started to say, why can’t we have our own version of Marvel all be in a very small thing now, was that the only approach to comics? Absolutely not. Gary wasn’t playing in that space. Gary Deller wasn’t playing in that space. Neither were Fox, neither were sorry, neither were fantastic, but it worked for us. But we had a very clear idea of what we were trying to do. What I would say any creative, the problem is it’s not the distribution. You can always find ways to get the books to the audience if you have an audience. The advantage that we had in the eighties was that people did go into the supermarket or the newsstands and rummage around and fired comics and so if we threw enough of them at them, eventually they would find us and the goal was simply to stay alive long enough to build that audience up. That’s what needs to happen. Kickstarter is not the answer that’s best. How many going to reach two, 300 people? It may be a case of literally going to the comic shops, handing them 500 books and saying, here, have ’em for free. Give them away to your readers and then I’ll tax them next time around.

(02:14:19):

And to say that people aren’t reading comics, I don’t buy that in America. The sales of DC and Marvel own the toilet, but mangas going through the roof. Exactly. More people consuming comic book style material in America now than in any time in history. The Yanks are getting it wrong. The Japanese are getting it right. I think the question needs to be why? What is it that’s turning people off one type of material and onto another? My students at the uni and they’re all reading comics. Absolutely. The tangible artefact has not disappeared. It does still exist. It’s just that we’re not moving with the times about,

Gary Dellar (02:15:00):

Sorry,

Dave de Vries (02:15:01):

Forgot

Gary Dellar (02:15:01):

About Europe as well. They into a lot of good graphic novels over there. There’s a massive sale over there.

Dave de Vries (02:15:09):

Question. Audience has got to find the goods. You have to find the got to find the audience. That’s the point. Audience

Gary Dellar (02:15:15):

And commercial value of it

Dave de Vries (02:15:17):

And the old techniques isn’t the answer because we’ve tried this, we’ve thought that Kickstarter would do it, it’s okay, but if you’re happy in printing two or 300 units a time, Kickstarter is for you and wonderful and maybe you can increment it up at 50 per, but I’m not interested in that. I want to get to 10,000. That’s

Leigh Chalker (02:15:38):

The question. Sorry. That’s a question that I would raise Dave is because obviously on Facebook, et cetera, et cetera, and you’re varying socials, you do see people with Kickstarter campaigns. I mean everyone here is part of them, so no one’s going, this is a query that I’ve wondered. I’ve seen a success regardless of numbers. I guess it depends on what the individual behind the Kickstarter’s drive is. You know what I mean? Some people to me seem just to want to cover the print and play the long game. I’m going to make the print, I’m going to keep ’em in stock, I’m going to sell ’em at cons, I’m going to sell ’em slowly. That’s their business proposal. So I’m not giving anyone any curry here. I’m just making,

Dave de Vries (02:16:25):

And if that’s what you want to do, great go with God.

Leigh Chalker (02:16:28):

You’ve got other people that want to make 15, 20 grand, give themselves money for three or four months to pay the rent and to do that sort of stuff, but then they seem to fall into the traps. I mean the loopholes of not having comic books ready for varying reasons, things take time. Not everything is in our control. You know what I mean? Anything can happen and I’m watching even the American dudes, they’re booming 12 months ago and now they’re not making half as much as what they want on the Kickstarters. I have a question for all of you. Do you think everything has its time and do you think Kickstarter is coming to an end where we may vary, may vary, it’s overdone, it seems to be, and I’m just asking the question, I don’t care where the people do or don’t, it’s entirely up to the individual, but it’s just an observation I’m putting out there that from my perspective,

Dave de Vries (02:17:30):

It’s part of a bigger package. It’s not going to solve the problem, but it’s not going to disappear, but it’s not the great salvation either.

Leigh Chalker (02:17:39):

So I mean outside of that, Dave, at this point, because you seem to be the most vocal, and I’ll ask you the question. No, no, no, that’s cool. I love it. I like it. These are just thoughts that I’ve had and this is just what Chinwag comes into. So anyone can dive in. Dave, if you had your opportunity and you were going to do your first comic book and you’d sort of been seeing this Kickstarter thing or you thought to yourself like, oh bugger, it printing’s cheap, I’m going to print my own, I dunno, 500, 100 copies, however many you want, what pathway would you go down?

Dave de Vries (02:18:20):

You know what? I am still working through that. I can give you some of the things that we did. Some of the stuff that we did with Cyclone is that we adopted all different approaches. So like Gary, Shannon and I would literally, we would go to the lobby of the Megaplex and we would have a big cutout of Flash and the Night Fighter in polystyrene and we would be there selling books and we would have permission to do it because we’re valu adding to people hanging around, buying tickets and so forth. We would go to the comic shops and organise signings and so forth and that worked. Anybody who was in the city, we were in Sydney so we were able to sort of walk into a lot of the comic shops and sort of develop that one-on-one relationship with the comic stores, but in places like Perth, the cost of getting the books to them were ridiculous and so we’d say, oh look, we’re just going to send them 30 books and we’d just say to the guys at the other end, we don’t want any money for ’em, we just want you to just sell ’em to your fans.

(02:19:36):

So the ones who you think the most going to appreciate

Eli Abidin (02:19:38):

It, I’ve got to go, I’m having a go. So thanks for the chat. I’ll see you guys around

Leigh Chalker (02:19:49):

Alrightyy. See you man. See you mate.

Eli Abidin (02:19:51):

Good to see you again.

Dave de Vries (02:19:53):

So Lee, we would literally, for the interstate comic shops, we would say what matters more than anything else is that we have a presence there. So we would literally send them the books and say, sell ’em and you get 100% of the sales or pay us for the postage. It was something as simple as that because when you start to add up the amount of money that you’re going to get back from those sales, like let’s say you’re getting 30 or 40 bucks, it’s not worth it. That $30 is better spent in the pockets of the comic shop guys who are going to say, if I sell this for 10 bucks, I get a profit on every single book. That gives them an incentive to move it. That was something that these are different strategies. Look, I dunno one thing that there are advantages which didn’t exist when we were doing it was there were no comic conventions.

(02:20:49):

Now there are, they’re mainstream, they’re common. So I know Gary, ER and dk, these guys were, they frequent those conventions and you can slowly build up an audience in a market and so forth. But I think more than anything else I’d be saying what do the audience want to read and how do I give them what they want and how do I develop that relationship? We did what Stan Lee did, we put a huge premium on things like the letters to the editor. We put a huge premium on things like the editorials, that idea of developing that close relationship. You’ve got social media these days. I don’t know if you guys are sort of running a dialogue with your audience, getting them to suggest storylines and so forth. It’s a huge amount of work, but to my mind, if you’re saying How would I progress today?

(02:21:44):

I would say, okay, I would spend at least 50% of my energy building my market, building my audience and the other 50% of the time actually writing and drawing the comics. But the truth is creatives tend not to do that. They just want to draw and then once they’re done, put it out there and then hope that somebody can sell it for them. Unfortunately, if you do that, you need to have somebody who’s willing to get out there and beat the drum and pound and I suspect that the most successful around this group of people who have that willingness to do that

Leigh Chalker (02:22:19):

Edged sword of it, isn’t it? That’s the double-edged sword of it from a creator’s perspective. I mean sp and I’ve spoken about this is, I mean for me, I do this for varying reasons, chinwag because much like yourself, I love comics, I love the history, I love meeting people. I learn, I mean it’s a great sensation, but there’s a part of me as well that knows as a comic book creator that I have to put myself out there, you know what I mean? So that people may inadvertently be drawn to my comic books, all my artwork and stuff and I’m not 100% comfortable with it. Rob and if Shane was here would know. I’ve had multiple conversations with them where I’ve had anxiety attacks, I’ve had huge issues with being doing this, but you have to do it. I mean I definitely agree with you there. You do have to get out there. It’s very scary to put yourself out there, there’s no doubt. But the point is, it’s like how it is, but then there’s different lanes there, different levels of success. You

Dave de Vries (02:23:40):

Know who I would research, the San Francisco underground of the late sixties, early seventies. I reckon if you research what they did and how they achieved their success, it was on a small intimate scale, but they had a very strong solid audience. It may be that I know that the army bases and the universities were their prime target audience. I think gone are the days, if you can just throw it out to the four winds and hope that somebody laps it up, it needs to be a very targeted approach. People, I think we need to be very specific about who do I in your head, what does your comic book reader look like? And the answer isn’t anybody who likes reading good comics, that’s just a bullshit shrug off. No, my comic book reader is 45 bald and you know what I mean, you zero in on it,

Leigh Chalker (02:24:33):

Me,

Rob Lisle (02:24:36):

Not me, plenty ahead just turned 28.

Dave de Vries (02:24:41):

Maybe you’re going to the pubs and selling them there, but you single out the pubs that also have bands and you make sure that the genre of the bands that play at those pubs are the same genre as the audience that you are reaching out to is look, it is a commercial approach and it’ll probably be very different for every one of us, but it’s all about who is your audience, how are you going to reach them, what are you willing to do? How long are you willing to stay in the game? And also how much money are you going to spend? The reality is that until you have an audience, I’d say until you got about maybe a thousand loyal followers, I wouldn’t even try to make my money back on any time I print. That’s not the goal. The goal is if you are printing up 200 books and you’re covering your print bill, you’re not really because not covering the cost of your time and your effort and your energy and all of that stuff as well. It’s easier to actually go out and do a real job and then lose some money by then using that money to actually then fund your habit, which is getting this comic and what you’re buying is the time to build your market and your audience. I think we’re just too satisfied with, oh, if I get enough people to pay my print bill, that’s success. I don’t see it like that.

Danny Nolan (02:25:55):

The other thing, there’s no middleman between creator and audience, so it is you

Dave de Vries (02:26:03):

Have to become that middleman. That’s no kidding.

Danny Nolan (02:26:06):

Yeah, you are. Right. And I suppose that’s a bit scary and there’s another thing that because of the cost thing and the time thing is that if you are going to run a series, you are going to have to be continued on your last panel of your comic. Are people going to be patient enough to wait a year for part two or make

Dave de Vries (02:26:30):

The self-contained stories?

Danny Nolan (02:26:32):

Yeah, just sit there and do, yeah, a one shot just maybe people should concentrate on that. Maybe the long form stories. Maybe just wait until you’ve done the whole thing and release it as a trade

Dave de Vries (02:26:45):

That can be episodic but still wrap up each story at the end.

Danny Nolan (02:26:49):

Maybe trades are the answer in one shot. It’s hard. Can’t predict the future. That’s the whole thing about any industry. You cannot tell the future. You were talking about population in the seventies. Somebody wrote the book, the population bomb and said by the 1990s, China and India would just perish because they could not feed their populations. Here we are in the 21st century and who are the most vibrant economies on the planet? It’s just ridiculous. You cannot do the future because you always have what’s around you as your guide. Who would’ve thought that the news agents would disappear, that the newspapers would become almost obsolete where we have no local papers where we are anymore. They were common as mud. They were always in your letterbox covid. They all disappeared

Dave de Vries (02:27:50):

And yet vinyl is coming back and I don’t believe it’s for the audio quality.

Danny Nolan (02:27:54):

What’s that, sorry?

Dave de Vries (02:27:55):

Vinyl albums are coming back and I don’t believe that’s,

Danny Nolan (02:27:57):

They’re already here and that is my one hope for the comic.

Dave de Vries (02:28:00):

I don’t believe that’s because of the audio quality.

Danny Nolan (02:28:03):

It’s a community. I think they’re better. Hopefully people will come back to comic side. They did the vinyl even Ettes are making and that is one great hope. Maybe nostalgia will kick in and

Dave de Vries (02:28:17):

People do like the experience of reading and reading a tangible object and collecting. These are things which I mean you only have to go into the comic shops. The problem is they’re not buying comics, they’re buying figurines. But that still tells me,

Rob Lisle (02:28:38):

I think when you said creatives don’t want to do that, I think it’s in the name. Obviously we want to create we otherwise we’d be called marketers. I think that’s why the beauty of a place like Reverie or Comex is because, so I wanted to try and see what it was like to do it myself. And I did sluggish and I realised that then last year when I talk about a glitch in the Matrix and whatever, I realised that sluggish would die with me because I was the only one promoting it. Whereas the Devil’s toilet, when I’m not at a convention, I’ll see photos and it’s on Gary’s table, I’ll see work of mine on the Comex table. I think the middlemen are out there. It’s just a very low paying, no paying job. And I think there are middlemen who perhaps could take advantage of some people.

(02:29:44):

So it’s hard to find the right person, the right trust, et cetera. I think too Kickstarter, I think when you’re talking at the level of say where I am and those a couple of levels above me, Kickstarter has been abused by a few and I think that then gives a bad rep to the whole thing, whereas there are lots of people who use it very smartly and it’s a print cost covering thing. And it’s also, it’s a difference when you are tabling, you are selling to randoms with the idea that then that random might hopefully your comic enough to find the little Instagram or web handle that’s on it. And even things that I quite enjoy, I barely go out of my way to find the next one. I have to be, holy shit, this is the best ever and then I’m going out of my way to find the next one. So I’ve sold a bunch of the Devil’s Toilet, right? When I do a Kickstarter, it’s to those loyal, when you make a sale on Kickstarter, you get that person’s email address and so you’re essentially hounding them to remind them that book that you may have kind of liked. Here it is and it’s only a click away. You don’t have to meet me in Geelong in two weeks time on table 44 and bypass all the other awesome things or whatever.

(02:31:31):

I think I totally understand the Kickstarter bashing because I’ve seen it abused. I’ve been inundated with guilt based marketing of like we’re a day away and we still are a hundred dollars shy or whatever. And I understand all of it. Everyone’s just struggling to get their thing going. But I think Kickstarter is a tool and this tool sees the benefit in it. But at the same time, I see the flip side as well. I was talking to Ben the other day, part of me working with Ben is because a couple of years ago, like we’ve stated Ben is one of the best to ever do it. And I thought the only thing in his way is there is no middleman for Ben because Ben doesn’t have, he’s not active on social media and all that sort of stuff. So it was altruistic of me, but also very, I wanted to ride his coattails and I thought, well Ben, let me do your Instagram.

(02:32:47):

Let me do, I’ll get you in front of people because you’re a sure thing waiting to happen and then I’ll ride the success train with you. But Ben said something very poignant to me the other day when we were trying to, he’s lost the password to his Instagram again for 20th time and I was trying to fix it for him and he was like, but Rob, this is time I could be spending drawing. And I was just like, I completely get that too because we’re creators. We want to sit down and create and there’s nothing worse than when you have to sit down and on the to-do list is to market whatever a thing. And you’re like, no, I sat down, I was hanging to write or I was hanging to draw. I don’t want to have to pimp this and pimp that. So all that to say I’m sitting on all your fences,

Danny Nolan (02:33:43):

The alternative to the middleman is community. That is what helps bridge that gap. As Lee keeps on saying, it’s community that keeps things going because that community will take that comic and put it on their table and someone else sees, like I go to and Peter will have different stuff on his table and I know you’ve had different stuff and your table spares and Gary’s, God knows what, and look at Shane. Shane has everything in his shop. Comex is a publisher, but he and all kinds of anybody’s stuff on there. So yeah, community does fill that gap of the middleman

Rob Lisle (02:34:30):

And I’ve heard it. People kind decry the community that, and there’s validity to it that we’re all passing the same $8 around as in like you buy Devil’s Toilet and then I buy Skies, Kevin Library and then Pete buys Toby and it’s the same $8 going round and round and round. But we all came to this medium. We love comics. I don’t buy everybody’s comics, I don’t like everybody’s comics. I want to read these things and I want to collect these things. I was at a market the other day and there’s boxes and boxes of Spider-Man, and I ask, is there any Australian comics? Because that’s where my heart is now. Not because for any other reason, I just want to read them, I want to collect ’em. And I don’t really see a problem with us buying each other’s work like that being a negative thing. There’s a support aspect, but I buy them too. I enjoy them more than I’m trying to support whoever

Gary Dellar (02:35:35):

Ultimately the right idea is there and it’s like a big jigsaw. Everything falls into place and ultimately when you look at the big picture, when you see that jigsaw done, you’ve got to look at it in the marketing side of it and trying to get the right market, which is what Dave said. It’s what others said. And that’s the hard bit because you’ve got to make it commercially viable. And to do that, you have to do a lot of experimentation. And that’s what a lot of the publishers need to do. You do lose a lot of time, you do lose a lot of money out of it, but ultimately you get the idea and it just comes to you slowly. And when you’re talking about Kickstarter, that’s only just part of the jigsaw puzzle. It’s to be used as such for the ultimate goal, the same idea

Dave de Vries (02:36:24):

Is you need to have your core market. And then the stuff like Tad was talking about where once you’ve got something that’s successful, then the rich gets richer because then suddenly the schools will say, well, we want to have the kids to read this is a comic that is successful, therefore we’ll get them to read this one. It’s the old Preto effect, the 20 rule that once you get to the, I mean it’s almost like that thing where two people are walking through the woods and then a lion roars and then one of them starts to put on his runners and they said, the other guy says, well, you never outrun that line. He says, I don’t have to outrun the line, I just have to outrun you. And to some extent there’s some truth to that, that the people who will succeed are the ones who stick it at the longest and have a very clear understanding of who’s going to be actually reading their material.

(02:37:23):

But the difference is that the person who runs the fastest, the first can then drag the others through the door as well. But at the moment, I think Danny, you made this point, we’re all kind of at that same level. Nobody’s running ahead and breaking new ground. And I think that’s the thing that will captivate the audience is that somebody needs to be able to get people inspired and go, I haven’t read a comic in a thousand years and I’d like to start reading again. The Phantom is going to do it anymore. It’s got to be something new.

Danny Nolan (02:37:56):

Something to aim for is to, who wants to be remembered in the histories in 40 years time? Who wants to be the Dave de Fryers, the Ted, the Tads and the Glands and the Gary’s in 40 years time?

Rob Lisle (02:38:13):

Well, because Lee, I was going to say you’ll enjoy this slash hate this, but to put it into wrestling parlance, Dave Dere is Hulk Hogan. Tad is the macho man. Gary is Rick Flair, and wrestling is an all time boom in the eighties, right? Exactly. And then you come along, you are Sean Michaels, I’m calling it, I’m Brett Hart, you got Razor Ramon down here and wrestling’s in the quiet period. And it’s not till stone cold. We don’t know who Stone Cold Steve Austin is yet in Australian comics. But he’s coming and when he comes and takes comics to the next level, they’ll go back and they’ll go, what happened during this little quiet period? And find that some of the best wrestlers ever were wrestling during that period. Just the bands didn’t know it yet. And I say that as the best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be, Brett, thank you

Danny Nolan (02:39:12):

An analogy. But it’s true. In 40 years old, someone’s going to be doing a history and you want to be the one of those people who gets remembered for doing this, for that, doing this. It’s something to aim for and that might be

Leigh Chalker (02:39:29):

The best way to do it. Danny is, I mean I think what we’re talking about here, regardless of all the mechanics and the times changing, distributions changing. I mean everything evolves and you’ve got to take a look at new directions to travel on that. But the one thing that’s kept it up is I took great motivation and creed from the dark Nebula that led me to pursue others issue one and Paul and Angel and Cyber Swine and Southern Squadron and then the Jackaroo and going backwards in time and fell in love. And then who’s to? It comes back to, I guess it is a long term thought process, but I would think that you want young people to be attracted to the medium. So therefore it would be my thought process that you would be as positive and as kind and as uplifting to young people that want to pursue their interest in comic books creativity and encourage them as much as you gentlemen have. And it might be a long road and there might not be as much money in it or distribution or anything like that, but I think everyone has different lanes of passage and motivation. Like Dave, you want to sell 10,000 copies of a comic, that’s cool with me. That’s your motivation. Some people,

Dave de Vries (02:41:18):

It’s not about selling.

Leigh Chalker (02:41:19):

Some people are happy with the job, I understand. But for me personally, Dave, I can tell you right now that for the first time in two and a half years, in about two months time, I’m bringing out the first issue of battle for Bustle after an extremely long period of hibernation due to varying circumstances. And quite frankly, I’ll be perfectly honest with you now, I don’t care if my mum is the only one that buys a coffee of it because this issue is for me and I have a different motivation than others. I’m not right? And I’m not wrong. I can only tell you from my perspective of how I feel about things. I’m going to just trudge along because I’ve come to the conclusion that for me personally, I’ve found the place where I fit. And I love the community, I love the friends I’ve made. I love being in the company of you and Tad and Peter and Peter and Ben and Eli and Gary and Danny and all the other people that I’ve met, all the other people. The only one on the screen you didn’t mention, I don’t have to mention you mate, but it’s like you’re already there. We’re linked, we made that. But Lee,

Dave de Vries (02:42:35):

The point I’m saying is I don’t care whether I sell 10,000 units, I want 10,000 readers.

Leigh Chalker (02:42:42):

Understood.

Dave de Vries (02:42:43):

And if you just want one person to read your book, that’s fine and maybe that’s enough for you. But Danny was talking about how can we be relevant? That was my impression Danny, was that it’s like we want to be culturally out there. People can walk into the newsstand and actually see our work. Okay, well, we’re not going to reach ’em through that technique. But what was kind of cool about the eighties was that we were culturally relevant, or at least to an extent, it feels a little bit at the moment, we’re all kind of doing it for each other. I want to reach out from beyond this circle and talk to a wider group. And it may be that giving them away is the answer, not selling them. I don’t know, maybe that’s

Danny Nolan (02:43:35):

No, I totally get that. I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I don’t really write comics anymore. I’ve given that away now. I tend more to do my writing. And since Gary and I talked about putting Toby in the newspaper, that’s my passion. That’s how I want to help comics. I believe in Toby. I think it’s one of the best things in Australian comics at the moment. Well written. It’s beautifully drawn. Drawn and it appeals to a huge audience. And so we’ve got the pre comic book day on Saturday. I’m not going to flog my comics, I’m just promoting Toby. I’ve got a contest where we’re giving away copies of Toby for the young ones and for the older people we’re giving. That’s our third but shot at the moment for Australian comic. That’s all it is. There’s probably something by each one of you in here, and that’s what I want to do. I want to promote an Australian comic that I believe in. And if I’m not going to make ’em anymore, I’ll help promote it.

Gary Dellar (02:45:05):

The interesting thing, the interesting thing about a lot of stuff is that that’s the way to go with a lot of these things. You have to find your audience, you have to get out there and do things. And look, there’s a lot of things happening behind the scene with Toby. There’s a lot of things happening. Ben’s got a little bit of an idea of some of the informational stuff coming up, but a lot of things that are happening that if we get the right time, the right people, Toby’s going to have a massive audience. So we’ve just got to wait and see what happens. But you’ve got to think outside the box. You need that readership to get anybody else to come in into the scene. And I’m talking about if get rid of, if you can get the readership for one comic, it’s going to attract a lot of other comics coming.

Danny Nolan (02:45:57):

It’s got a thread.

Gary Dellar (02:45:58):

And that’s the beauty about it. And the idea of the newspaper was just one event that’s happening and it’s got it out there and people know about it. The schools, when I go to the schools, I give away 30 copies to whoever will talk to me or talk to me about the art experience and to try to encourage the kids because that is a seed that you’re putting in the thing. So even though I’ve probably printed about 10,000 copies of Toby up to date, and that’s only with issue one and two, and that’s of course being mindful of the amount of different artists that have come to me and put covers on the comics. But one third of those comics have been given away to hopefully those that were not so much by Toby, but we’ll get that seed going that they’ll start enjoying comics again.

(02:46:52):

And that’s the beauty about it. But the commercial side of it is a different aspect and it’s what we’re working on now behind the scenes and that’s what we’re doing. So you have to look at every avenue can saying we, Rick McClean’s going to a lot of places now it’s hopefully going to be printed over in America. We showing, believe it or not, we’re showing Dave’s issue now that’s going to come out in the next probably two or three weeks that’ll be finished. That issue itself will go over overseas to Europe to look at at least five publishers. This is the, I dunno if you can see this. This is yours Danny, this is your comment that you wrote. It’s going to be a sample printed over overseas with Blue Moon comics. They’ve got the option of just printing that themselves and showcasing, and that’ll have another two comic strips in it that will showcase other artists in America.

(02:47:51):

So that’s another thing. So you have to think outside the ballpark if you want to get the readerships, but a lot of that stuff’s free, don’t get me wrong. A lot of it’s stuff free for one or two issues or this issue or that issue. But you get that, you build up that readership and that’s what you have to do. And Dave’s exactly right because what it does, it boils down to your readership. You’ve got to build that readership. And another thing is why I opened up to a lot of other people, because once you get that community in and once you get the people in there, it all expands. It’s a domino effect. And just the fact some simple, like putting Rob’s comic into another comic or turns into another comic as an ad, it just expands the whole thing because you are looking at it.

(02:48:35):

Because if someone picks up Toby or someone picks up torn and they like it and they look, oh, this is another comic, I’m going to go and buy this to see what it’s like. I know that Ry is pretty good and it absolutely works because I get a lot of feedback on it. And now that we’ve started putting, you’ll see that Rick McClean, we see that torn Toby three has now started getting letters put in it. It is actually working. So I dunno if it’s 10,000 hours, but at least I think it’s 20,000 hours, but it’s working. So it’s something that, so you are confident of growth in the industry in the community is very high. It is it because I’ve seen it working, but it is a lot a hell of a lot of hours you’ve got to put into it. A lot of people can’t do that or they won’t do it or they get very disjointed.

(02:49:24):

So that’s going to happen everywhere. But the positive side of it is that everybody that sticks to it, that’s still out there maybe five years time or 10 years, it’s a positive thing. You know when you go, a good example that I was always told, biggest thing that you’ve got advantage for you if you are selling a product is how much you showcase it. And that showcase depends on how you do it of course. But the more you showcase it, the better off you’re going to be. And a good example of circuses, I mean circus is not out there very much anymore, but the showcase of the circus now is a push and push and push. So it’s one of those things. So you’ve got to get out there. Even if you go to a or you go to a table, it’s the biggest showcase because people walk past you, not just walk past you. If they can see something in the background that’s showing something or TV that’s running, at least you’d grab the attention. And the real fun with most advertisements nowadays, we’ve got to walk past someone seven times to say, oh, okay, well look, I might look at this now. It doesn’t always work, but the majority of it does work.

Leigh Chalker (02:50:36):

Thank you, Tony. Alright, well gentlemen, I think that we might start winding it down. I’d also like to say that I think everyone’s opinions is valid. I think it’s a beautiful thing that communities can come together with varying degrees of opinions and just the ways that they would like to operate amongst the comic book community. And everyone can have an amicable and good chat and talk about things and nut things out and communicate and it’s all healthy. Whatever your path out there is entirely up to you as long as you just want to keep creating and join in with comic books because it is a wonderful community. So before we leave, I’m going to go for one quick lap around the room and I’m going to give everyone their last say before we head off for the evening. So I’m going to head straight down to Tad p. Mate, what have the last thing you’d like to say for this evening?

Tad Pietrzykowski (02:51:38):

Well, going off some of the things we’ve been talking about and the fact of the matter is at the moment we’re fortunate to be experiencing something of a renascence, and that’s a great thing on your question, Danny. About 40 years from now, I’m reminded of how we’ve seen ebbs and flows in Australian comics in that we had such a great golden age of Australian comics and then everything literally devolved because it all sort of fell apart. The last big thing I remember seeing before my book came out, my first book in 82 was of course the work of Gerald Carr with Brain Master and Vixen and Vampire. And that for me was the inspiration to keep moving forward. And then of course Cyclone and well in its own way, also reverie and we everything catapulted after 82. I mean there was Aus Comics, there was Reverie Cyclone came into play in 85.

(02:52:54):

And then when I came back to things after about a decade off and I was at a supernova and looking to relaunch Dark Nebula, this was 2006, Jason Paulis and I were doing a talk in this room and one of the first questions that we got hit with showed me how some people just really didn’t know their history. There was one guy who said, oh, can you tell us why there’s never been an Australian comic character that’s ever been popular overseas. And I could have destroyed him on the spot, but I just very quietly said, well actually, I can think of one character that takes us all right back to the beginning. Has anyone in here ever heard of Felix the Cat? And that told me that I was in a room with a whole lot of angry people who were with their arms folded and holding their breath waiting to be noticed.

(02:54:02):

And at the same time, a lot of creativity had devolved to just the photocopied and folded many comics. So much so that the next year when I came to a supernova with the first couple of my colour trades and everyone on artist, Sally wanted to know how the hell was I able to do this stuff? And I was very giving of my time, but it told me that things had devolved yet again from, we built things up in the eighties and nineties and all of a sudden everything sort of slipped back to that. I’m hoping that what we’re doing right now with, as I say with our renascence will help to spur things on. I mean the technology’s on our side, what with print on demand and everything like that. So things will look very hopeful. I would like to think that things won’t devolve too much to the photocopied and folded mini comics as they had in times past. So I’d like to think that the future’s so bright, we’ve got to wear shades to grip off a song title, but if I’ve got to put another 10,000 hours in it, so be it. I’m there. I’m there for the long haul. I have been and I will continue to be. So that’s my 2 cents worth.

Leigh Chalker (02:55:36):

Well said mate, thank you very much for being a guest tonight and thank you.

Tad Pietrzykowski (02:55:41):

Thanks for having me.

Leigh Chalker (02:55:42):

It’s always a pleasure mate. Mr. Peter Lane, your thoughts, mate,

Peter Lane (02:55:49):

I’ve just enjoyed the conversation tonight and enjoyed listening to all the perspectives and sitting back and taking in the knowledge. It’s been great. But yeah, I just hope that the Australian comic community turns into an industry at some point and just expands onwards and upwards.

Rob Lisle (02:56:12):

You are the British Bulldog Pete of the current. Anyway.

Leigh Chalker (02:56:23):

Well thank you very much Peter, and to both you and dad, I wish you every success moving forward with all of your endeavours and thank you for being on tonight. Peter Lawson, what are your thoughts mate?

Peter J Lawson (02:56:38):

I think it’s probably, for me at least the best time to be involved with creative endeavour of making the technology today has meant we can reach out and we can have meetings like this with other people that people are seeing in your work. Whereas back when I was younger, you’d draw at home and no one would see it. You could send off people, but you never even know if they’ve got it. But these days at least you can get the stuff out there. Don’t do it for Facebook likes. That’s the pathetic way for activate anything Facebook likes. The algorithms just kill you, but at least you can make contact with people.

(02:57:24):

The last few years I’ve gotten to know Dave, I’ve got to know Tad. Gary reached out to me because he had seen stuff I’ve done on social media and gave me an opportunity to start. Now I find that I’m going, I’m collaborating with Tab TAs in my script writing. I’ll be working on him with another secret project. We can’t talk about that. I’m very excited about this human fly thing has come along. None of this has come along. If the world wasn’t what it’s now where you can reach out and talk to other people all over the world and make those connections, you’ve just got to be prepared to do it, to accept that you might not get a lot of feedback, but people are seeing things. Yeah, like everyone’s been saying, you just put in the work and enjoy and do it for the love of it. Don’t do it for any other reason, primarily do the work because you love doing it and you want to tell stories or stories or whatever. Just do it for start again. That’s it.

Leigh Chalker (02:58:33):

Well said Peter. And thank you forth monkey. Thank you Peter. And thank you very much for being on the show as a guest tonight. It was very nice to see you, man. I haven’t seen you in a long time and I wish you every success with the human fly on your project moving forward and all your hard work, Kate, for you man. So keep going, don’t stop. Mr. Ben Sullivan, my friend. What would you like to say?

Ben Sullivan (02:59:06):

I was listening closely to what you guys were saying about the industry and I think it’s because of Gary that I can put my head down and just keep working without having to worry too much about some of the dilemmas that the real world throws at you. And Gary just puts the work on my plate and I try and get it done as fast as possible. Yeah, that’s what I want to say is a thank you to Gary for having me in Rev this whole time and this is major part of my career in this, but that’s it.

Leigh Chalker (02:59:48):

Well said mate. Nicely said, and thank you very much, Ben for being part of the show this evening. You and Spencer are definitely clicking the guest numbers up there, mate, so I might be out of a job by the end of the year, but I wish you ever a success too, Ben, and thank you for being a team. You too, in the last 12 and 18 months, man, because I wouldn’t have grown artwise without you, man. So thank you. Me too. Appreciate it, Tim. A great mate. Sp what would you like?

Rob Lisle (03:00:24):

Yeah, thanks Lee. Because I did, I was remiss thanking a few referee people earlier. I named a whole bunch of people, but I should have named a few more. Hayden Spar means a lot to me because he was Gary’s go-to guy before I pushed my way in. And Hayden could have pushed back against that. That could have been messy. But instead we became fast friends and we became together guys. That was one of the first when I said I came in and everyone was so nice. That was one of the first on my A solo chinwag with you. We just talked a lot about how sometimes I can go into new relationships a little bit judgy or suspect or cynical or whatever, and Hayden was so welcoming and so just sharing the wealth that it really opened my eyes.

(03:01:48):

And then it’s just that they became a partner in storytelling. We threw ideas back and forth with each other because the beauty of working for Gary is sometimes their gig is there’s this guy called Rick McCune and he’s an outlaw, he’s a nomad and go and that’s all. And then other times it’s like, here’s torn, here’s his villain. I need them to go back in time and then they need to go back and they need to press this button. And it’s so full on that you’ve got to juggle all these balls. So having a fellow creative who totally plays in that same box is good. And Steve, can you mute Tad’s mic because holy moly.

(03:02:46):

And then I just wanted to say thank you to Ken Best as well. Ken Best was a workhorse. I have written a lot of torn and he has drawn a lot. I think he’s drawn six of my issues. He totally goes in for the wacky stuff that I propose. His stuff has been improving with each page. And so yeah, he’s been a great fellow creative to work with. And then someone who I definitely loved working with is Peter Fairfax, who I got to team up with on Larrikin and just, which was one of the harder of the Gary projects or where the first issue, the synopsis was fairly laid out. There was plenty of room to play with characters and whatever, but the plot of that first issue was very much, I need them here, I need them there and then I need them here.

(03:03:49):

And it could have been daunting, but it was really a fun challenge. And creating characters with Peter Fairfax was an absolute joy. I just wanted to say sorry to Peter Lawson because Dana Lawson is my favourite Lawson artist. I’ve never worked with Pete. I’ve worked with Dana a few times now. Who else? Of course I wanted to thank Gary Della because yeah, as I say with Badly Beaten Boy in 2013, I didn’t know what to do with it. Devil’s Toilet One, I didn’t know what to do with it. Perhaps I would’ve found Sizzle years later. Who knows? Gary took me under his wing, he showed me how to do all of this and I like to think that I took the ball and ran with it. And Gary doesn’t ask for anything in return. We’ve signed no contracts. He just rings me up on, would you want to do this?

(03:04:48):

Do you want to do that? Do you want to do this? Hey, can I put Devil’s Toilet over here? And it’s just a good relationship to have. And then Lee, you said about me and Ben clicking over how many times we’ve been on Chinwag brace for more wrestling. So Rick Flair is in the WW Hall of Fame as both being a solo wrestler and as part of the Poor Horseman. Triple H has been in solo, but also as part of Degeneration X. I’ve been on this podcast solo as a member of Rosie, as a member of Rie, and I believe in July. I’m doing something even more special on this very show. I dunno if I’m allowed to tell anything about that as yet. So I won’t, but I’ll just say thank you Lee, and I’ll save further sopp us for July. But yeah, this show is a time capsule of this Brett Hart, Sean Michaels era that yeah, we might not be selling thousands of copies, but there are a shit tonne of us at the moment and there are more and more every day.

(03:06:07):

Like Stu Thornton fourth Monkey just releasing his new comic book with comics. So many people watching this show and drink and draw and whatever, and picking up the pen for the first time or for the first time in a long time. Or bringing comics to life that people like Gary Sizzle. And you and I like to think with drink and draw, I play the tiny part, just all of us doing this stuff and doing it in front of people, keeping it on front street and just very grateful. And I think we might not have a thousand readers, but we have a thousand creators and I feel like we didn’t have that 10 years ago. So yeah, there you go.

Leigh Chalker (03:06:54):

Well said. Matt, thank you very much for the kind words, Andy, I wish you every success mate and I’ll be right there with you watching you mate. Same way as you will be. Got your back brother. Mr. Dave Dre, what’s the last thing you would like to say, sir?

Dave de Vries (03:07:14):

Yeah, I’ve really enjoyed coming on this evening. I’ll preface everything that I said before by the fact that I was in response to the question, Dave, what would you do? And that is I guess the key thing. That’s what I would do because I like everybody else resort to what I understand and what I know. And so that worked very well for us in a form back in the eighties. Whether that would work and it would obviously clearly have to be modified in the modern era. I don’t have all the answers and I think we will all find our own path. For me, my path was always find the audience, find the market first, and then the money will flow. And that would be, I guess the only approach that I would have. What I would say though is that the reason why we were reasonably successful with Cyclone was because we had a model to work off.

(03:08:12):

We at, sorry, we looked at Marvel and we basically were trying to do Marvel in Australia, not just in terms of content, but in the whole approach. We looked at the way that Stan and Jack worked together. We looked and in many ways my relationship with Gary and then also with Glenn and now with Tad has been very much that type of relationship where it was very much collaborative and I’m honoured to have been able to work with Spie and Ben in a similar manner. And so I would look not to Marvel anymore because I think if you look at where Marvel is right now, considering their size and their scale and their potential, I think they are punching way, way, way under their potential. But there are other people like the manga, various crowds out there who are highly successful in doing very well.

(03:09:03):

That’s where I’d be turning my attention to. I’d be looking at who are doing it well at the moment because there are more people than ever worldwide reading comics now than ever any out of the time. We are not in a slump. And maybe as Australians we need to look beyond Marvel and dc. It work for us, but it might not be the path that people need to look at now. So interesting and thanks Danny for getting that conversation rolling. But I dunno what the answer is, but I do know that the answers are out there. My response would be to look at those people who are doing well and find a way to do the Australian version of that. Lee, I want to thank you for putting this on tonight. I was looking at some of the past shows, I think we’ve topped in terms of length. I think this is over three hours.

Leigh Chalker (03:09:53):

Yeah, pretty close. I dunno. Tad and I got up there mate, tad and I got up there. So

Dave de Vries (03:09:59):

With that I’m going to shut up. So thanks guys. I really enjoyed it. And Sha tomorrow, mate,

Leigh Chalker (03:10:06):

Thank you very much mate for being a guest on the show. Thank you for being a big part like you and Tad and Gary and the cyclone crews for me and influencing me when I was younger and getting inadvertently in a strange way to this place to be with you guys. And great honour, and thank you for being on the show again.

Dave de Vries (03:10:24):

Very kind of you to say that. Thank you.

Leigh Chalker (03:10:26):

No problem at all. Mr. Danny Nolan, what’s the last thing you would like to say?

Danny Nolan (03:10:34):

I’d like to say thank you, pat. Let me come on tonight, Lee. Also, I’d like to thank Gary for giving me another chance five years ago out of the blue, accepting a couple of comics that couldn’t find a home and then asking me to write some stories, just come out and write some stories which come out. And now I’ve just found out that one’s going to be on sale in America pretty soon, which is pretty mind blowing. Thank you for that. And because I stopped drawing 20 years ago and writing comics, it’s just something that I’m not big on these days. I’m having a rest from it. I tend to my history and he’s given me an outlet for that as well, letting me do my little pieces about how I looked at things in the past. And also by giving me very old comics to explore and to review. It’s been a pleasure. And so even though I’m not actively really doing comics anymore, I still feel like I’m involved. And thanks to Gary for that, I appreciate that greatly. So thank you sir. I tip my hat to you even though I’m not wearing one.

Leigh Chalker (03:12:05):

Thank you for being on the show, Danny, and thank you for being a supporter of Australian comic books and thank you for being part of the community mate. You’re welcome member. Especially now that you’re looking after the history of comics and stuff like that, man. So don’t ever think that you’re out of it, man. Right in it. So cheers man. Thank you for being on the show. Greatly appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Gary Della, what is the last thing that we would like to say for this evening? So

Gary Dellar (03:12:38):

We’ve just got to look at this in a very different perspective. And all I can say it’s one hell of a journey. It’s mind boggling. We’ve got some fantastic people around us and we’ve got the future to look to. And that’s going to be the fantastic outlook in what we’re coming up with. And the people that even here now, the people that we’ve shown, there’s another three or four companies or groups in Australia that are really moving forward with comics. And this never happened five years ago or even 10 years ago. It’s a completely different changed environment now. So it’s going to be very interesting. A lot of things are happening behind the scenes with a lot of people. There’s a lot of things that are happening with me that I just can’t say. So we’ve just got to just plot along and when it hit the fan, it’s going to affect everybody.

(03:13:37):

So it’s going to be very interesting. And just the people here alone is, for me, it’s just such a wonderful experience because even though it was back in the eighties when it started just now, just alone, we started the foundation back then, but it was sort of wiped out, left for a little while, but now the foundation that started now is absolutely brilliant. It’s growing. And I would say in the eighties, reverie itself wasn’t known around Australia to that extent, but now it is. I go to a lot of, even the tables in a lot of the other states and people come up to you and say, oh, I remember you in the eighties. I remember this. I’ve bought Ry. I’ve bought to, I bought this. So things are actually changing, not just with Ry itself, but with a lot of other people that are putting out comics now because it’s getting really, it’s a big event now, and a lot of the comics now, Australian comics and creatives are going overseas with a lot of things now, which is good. You have to look at the deep for examples, you’ve got to look at ne Landers. You’ve got to look at, there’s heaps out there. A lot of people don’t talk about it, but it is happening. So it’s really a really good time here and now to be into comics, and that’s going to be the beauty about it.

(03:15:07):

So there again, it’s one hell of a journey for all of us. Thank you.

Leigh Chalker (03:15:13):

Thank you very much, Mr. Biff, for being a guest this evening. Thank you very much for taking a chance on all of these guys. Thank you very much for taking a chance on me. And you are correct in that it has been a journey because if you hadn’t have taken battle for Bustle, I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here with Chinwag and I certainly wouldn’t be in the company of you guys, and I wouldn’t be in the company of a lot of other people I’ve met and pursuing a purpose and a path. So thank you, sir, and for Ry comics and everyone involved in the creative side of things there and your future endeavours. I wish you every success, and I know as part of the community, your success is everyone’s success. It close, it all moves together and it goes forward, and that’s the community, the unity.

(03:16:08):

On closing for me this evening, there was a comment from a person called Absence Minded. If you could please bring that back up, mate, if you are there Now, absence minded in the first one says, fantastic show guys. You inspired me. There’s one more that comes after it, buddy, if you can put that up as well. Absent-Minded as a woman who enjoys comics, thank you all for fostering Safe spaces for all SI would think that I’m not going to go into show acts of kindness. I’m not going to talk about next week’s show. I’m not going to talk anything more about Unity and Community is Unity or thank anyone. I think that Absence Minded has summed up exactly what this show has been about tonight. It’s what I try to portray with Chinwag. I know it’s what everyone, not just on the show, but everyone I know put across their creativity and how they feel and the community side of things in Australian comics, and I’d like people to take note of that.

(03:17:27):

I’ll say it for you once more because I think it’s incredibly important, and I think that’s probably the greatest comment that I’ve seen come across Chinwag. So says, Chuck it up once more, buddy, and let me read it out and then we’re going to rock and roll. So Absent Minded says that if he doesn’t want to do it, everyone can go back. Here we go, here we go. There’s all fourth Monkey, all these Aussie comic legends. In one show, I’m star struck. It doesn’t really matter. You can go back. But the point is, it is about creating safe spaces. It is about allowing people to be themselves in whatever lane you want. Do whatever creative endeavours you want to choose. I’m particularly proud of that comment and thank you absent minded that’s made this nice even better. So thank you very much. Thank you for watching Chinwag. Good luck to Rie. Keep drawing and she, as always, chinwag will be made with love. Thank you.

Voice Over (03:18:30):

This show is sponsored by the Comex Shop. Check out Comex do CX for all things comics and find out what Comex is all about. We hope you enjoyed the show.