Andrew Law

Voice Over (00:03):
This Show is sponsored by the Comics Shop. Welcome To Tuesday Chinwag With your host Lee Chalker, writer, artist, and creator of the Comic series Battle for Basel.

Leigh Chalker (00:26):
Hello, welcome to another episode of Tuesday Chinwag. My name is Lee Chalker. I’m the creator of Battle for Bustle. Battle for Bustle is available in the X Shop. The reason I mentioned the Comex shop so early in the show is because of its great importance is over 100 Australian independent comic books available in it. It is a $9 flat rate, which means you can buy one comic or you can buy ’em all. It entirely depends on you. There’s a great variety. There’s some amazing creators. In actual fact, there’s not just some, but they’re all amazing creators in their own right and I would hope that everyone can get onto that because it not just supports them, but it also supports the live streams. So the best thing you can do for Comex in the community is to like ’em and subscribe ’em anywhere You can find them. So the best thing you can also do is send comments in because I encourage them immensely so you can be interactive with myself. Good day Jeffrey. Nice to have you back mate. Thank you for being here. Hello,

Leigh Chalker (01:30):
Absent. How are you doing? And hello, Nick May.

Leigh Chalker (01:36):
Alright, so for everyone I forget to say good day to hello, welcome and thank you for watching and supporting the show. Yeah, and subscribe. So if anyone out there hasn’t seen a chinwag before, it’s a fluid show because I like fluidity, I like to talk about lots of things with the guests and see where we can go with our conversation. And basically it’s based on who, what, where, when, why, and how. We sometimes cover them. We sometimes don’t delve into the depths of humanity and to great heights and all in between. And like timespace interface, three, four, fifth dimensions. I mean, God knows where these things go. I mean I’ve been everywhere man. Can’t you tell? Look at me. So other than that, I think that’s just about everything. Andrew, do you think

Leigh Chalker (02:23):
I covered everything in that intro there mate? Or am I missing

Leigh Chalker (02:26):
Something?

Andrew Law (02:28):
No, you’re missing something.

Leigh Chalker (02:30):
I’m not. Alright. If anyone out there thinks I’m missing someone like Andrew, please send in a comment because I don’t know, I’m really, I feel a vibing tonight. So Tuesday’s my favourite. Well done,

Andrew Law (02:44):
Well done.

Leigh Chalker (02:45):
Thank you mate. I dunno how you remember all that, mate. How do I get through it all? You remember? No man, I don’t keep notes. I guess I’m just on the spot sort of dude, man. And I like to run the gauntlet sometimes, Andrew, you know what I mean? It makes life interesting, but it is what it is. But without further ado, the guest this evening, as you may have already seen on his little yellow box there is Mr. Andrew Law. Welcome sir and welcome to the Chinwag family. How are you?

Andrew Law (03:21):
Good. I’m going good today. Yep. Had a good day.

Leigh Chalker (03:24):
Yeah, yeah, that’s good to hear man. I’ve had a good day too. Let’s make it an even better night. So Andrew man, are you ready to rock and roll?

Andrew Law (03:32):
Ready to rock and roll?

Leigh Chalker (03:34):
Very good. Who?

Andrew Law (03:39):
I am Andrew Law. I’m a comic artist that I’ve was originally a Queenslander, now a Victoria. I’ve been drawing all my life and discovered the passion for comics and this is what I want to do and it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. So somebody who’s worked a lot in my life and always had it as a hobby and as a side gig and I’m finally starting to put the pedal to the medal to actually get something achieved and a new book coming out and everything. But yeah, I want to apply what I learned in the workforce, hard work to put it into my artwork and my storytelling and create some really interesting fantasy sort of comics, dragons, we all love dragons. We,

Leigh Chalker (04:47):
I enjoy the fact that you are delving into the fantasy realm men, because I’ve got a little bit of a thing for fantasy novels and bit of an old school like Lord of the Rings and Dragon Lance fan myself and the Belgar ad series and things like that. And I saw your artwork, Dave Dye. Good evening mate, and it’s lovely to hear from you man. I’ve missed you. If anyone hasn’t cottoned on to Dave Di, he’s in the comac shop too. And if you want to see a champion and a legend of Australian comic books, go and get some Dave Di comic books. I’ve got lots of ’em and I love ’em. I might even have to buy more.

Andrew Law (05:30):
That was one of the ideas behind the drawing fantasy was that’s the books, the novels like Dragon Lengths and all that used to love reading and you sort of visualise ’em, but you couldn’t find them in comics. You had a little bit of cone in here, a bit here and there smattering or they’ll put a dragon in every now and then. I really wanted to have, I think, what was it, Joe Madira like battle chasers that sort of just delve deep into a fantasy comic and there’s not that much out there. There is a few quite good indie ones, but I wanted to put my own stamp on it.

Leigh Chalker (06:17):
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s cool. You’ve got a real nice style for it too, man. It’s nice and clean and the drawings of the dragons that I’ve seen are very, very cool and yeah, your characters are good too. I’ve been looking at your a four drawings that you are prepping and stuff like your Kickstarter, add-ons and things like that and they’re very, very nice men, which excites me more as well. It just all seems to really, really rock and roll together. So that’s why I had Jeffrey, my mate Ray and I, we are just talking about the Kickstarter last week. Hey, look at that Jeffrey. And here’s Andrew now for you mate, so you can hear all about it and get yourself a little bit more familiar with it and during the evening they got any questions?

Leigh Chalker (07:11):
Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (07:11):
Yeah, five

Leigh Chalker (07:12):
Questions at Andrew. That’s what he’s here for. We’re fully interactive, everyone knows that. And this evening if my wizard friend in the background at some point this evening can pop up, gday Rob the Kickstarter

Leigh Chalker (07:24):
Address here and there. You’ll be able to get directly to it. Gday mate slay him.com. That’ll take you to the Kickstarter so you can support Andrew on his fantastical venture of Dragons and Soothsayers. There’s some cool stuff going on man, but let’s take you back to little Andrew because little Andrew was telling me a story just before the show started about, we were talking about a little bit of music and Andrew was saying that his mum ducked down to the shops and he had a Metallica album and he wanted to crank it to test out the sound system and he was chilling out on the floor, just rocking out and mum came home and scared the hell out of him. So I find that, and myself included, music is an integral part along the creative journey as well, man. So I’m assuming obviously with your tail before you enjoy your music. So what came first man? A love of music or a love of drawing?

Andrew Law (08:32):
It was a little bit of both. I mean I’ve always been into the Iron Maiden and the myth and the stories they tell in there, their songs, they delve into history and stuff that you’re just like, oh yeah, they’re towing a tale, not just a soppy love song, but there was always begging mom to buy a record here and there sort of thing to particular music that I could get into, but drawing was always there drawing. I was that quiet kid that sort of, I was always quite happy to sit alone and just draw and get annoyed when your friends would copy your drawing. And were

Leigh Chalker (09:27):
You an only child or you,

Leigh Chalker (09:28):
You’ve got brothers, sisters.

Andrew Law (09:31):
I’m a middle child. I’ve got a older brother and a younger sister. They’re creative in their own way. My parents always encouraged it. Mom had a friend that we worked in a printer and came home with a great big roll of bloody printer paper off the press and we’d sit at the end of the table and just reel out and draw and draw and draw and draw unlimited supply of paper. But she used to tell me off for using a grease paper as tracing paper because that was apparently expensive.

Leigh Chalker (10:15):
No bacon that weekend, mate. Hello Ben. How you doing buddy?

Andrew Law (10:27):
Yeah, it was always something parents used to love watching a lot of those old Disney book movies like Jungle Book and Robin Hood and all that. So there’s that love of animation and every cartoon ever, I’m still watching cartoons. I think a lot of ’em are much better than the live actions that come on TV and astroboy and star blazers and all that. Back when I was young I’d always be drawing spaceships and not doing any schoolwork.

Leigh Chalker (11:06):
Star blazers still blows my mind that while it’s not my favourite spaceship design of all time, the little fighters with the tiger stripes on them. I used to, I couldn’t get models obviously when I was a kid and I used to make cut cardboard out and put it together and add, retrofit it with Lego and anything I could find and paint them up with the tiger stripes and stuff. Man, I love,

Andrew Law (11:39):
I had try to make the ship in Lego but three feet long

Leigh Chalker (11:44):
And

Andrew Law (11:45):
Use every block we had

Leigh Chalker (11:49):
A hundred pack of Lego wasn’t

Leigh Chalker (11:51):
Enough to do that man. I churned through Lego so much Mom and dad ended up buying me a cheaper version of the Lego man that wasn’t Lego but it was I guess, I dunno where they got it from, but like a thousand blocks set mate just to keep me happy for 10 bucks and it was pretty cool except my cats and dogs used to steal pieces but I learned to live with that. These are part of sabotage my toys, man. I learned to live because I fellow, yeah, star Blazers when you’re an Iron Maiden fan because they’ve got such iconic characters with Eddie and stuff like that. For any of you that don’t know Iron Maiden covers and their skeletal zombie character Eddie are quite iconic pieces. Was that influencing you at the time just with that sort of, because number was a pretty iconic album cover and that during that period,

Andrew Law (13:07):
Yeah, when I hit 16, yeah, I had the Killers and a T-shirt. I think I bought it like three times I wore it out and especially heavy metal iconography like the skulls and the guns and roses tops and all that. I used to have ripped blue jeans and when I was bored I would get out the texture and draw, use your illusion Alvin cover on one leg and don’t tread on me skull on the other leg. And people used to walk up to me and say, can we buy ’em? I’m like, no, this is my board, this is my,

Leigh Chalker (13:53):
You can have it right now. Strip off in the shop mate, walk out of there in your undies, 50 bucks up job done.

Andrew Law (13:59):
But the problem was is you wash ’em and the ink would go out of them so you’d have to redraw them.

Leigh Chalker (14:07):
Well you’d have this weird tie dye I guess on your jeans. Hey, were you wearing your jeans that much that they just shredded at the knees or did you go and get a new pair of jeans and then do it like to look funky?

Andrew Law (14:23):
No, we used to always roller skate. Me and my mates used to go roller skating a lot. So when you inevitably jump over trolleys with your roller skates on and hit the deck, you’re always ripping jeans.

Andrew Law (14:39):
Yeah,

Andrew Law (14:40):
Yeah. So you a daredevil,

Leigh Chalker (14:42):
You were a daredevil back in the day, man, jumping trolleys and stuff.

Andrew Law (14:47):
Yeah, well we all sort of pushed each other to, we used to go to the local rink every Friday night and then skate round, shopping centres, car parks afterwards, place every now and then come up and say, hey, move on. But some of them were just fascinated by people still in roller skates. But yeah, we used to take not just the jeans, but you’d take chunks out of your knees as well.

Leigh Chalker (15:16):
Yeah, but look, it just adds to the character of your legs mate and more stories to tell when you got the chinwag you can talk about the chunks and the divots and the little growing skin man that didn’t grow back properly. I announced that to the world. Hey, you were saying still people, the police were amazed that you were still roller skating. Were you like one of those bandidos that stuck to the rollerskating while everyone else was doing rollerblading? Because I remember man,

Andrew Law (15:53):
Yeah, rollerblades were coming in when we were skating, but roller blades were good for the ramps and the street skating because if you hit a stone you didn’t go over tit because the wheels. But yeah, that’s why we used to skate around the car parks after they were closed because it was smooth concrete. If you trip over and hit your knee on concrete, you just wear the skin off if you trip over and land on when it takes a chuck out of you.

Leigh Chalker (16:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well there’s some valuable advice for anyone out there thinking of taking up some sort of wheeled footwear. Smooth concrete will keep you good mate, Ray Williams. Hey Andrew, how long did it take for you to draw Slay Him? I love the art and I am just curious how long a person takes to draw a page like that. There’s your first one Andrew, let Ray know Buddy.

Andrew Law (17:03):
So a lot of Slay him was drawn in spare time carrying iPad around half an hour waiting to pick up kids from school, five minutes at lunchtime at work when you weren’t exhausted from work, getting as much in as you want. So it’s very hard to actually say how long in the page, but pretty much if I was to sit down these days and dig into it, pencils could be a day or so, inks probably about another day or more because I usually go to ink and then back to pencils and ink just to embellish. The colours have been a new thing for me for the last two or three years and about three days on the colours because there’s still working out the colours. I’ve got a basic way of getting the basics down, but always going back and just adjusting them and then matching ’em to other pages so they all sit colour corrections sort of thing. So I’m still trying to figure out a quicker way of doing that, but if you’re doing a six page scene, I get the colours down for one or two pages, then the other three or four pages I can get the colours done in about a day or so.

(18:52)
But yeah, that’s sitting down when you don’t have interruptions and when it flows, quite often as artists, we hide away in that little dark corner of our room to try and block out the word just so we can get stuff done and life still intervenes.

(19:20)
But yeah, if I really like an A three piece, a page, three days to a week page. But yeah, I’ve been slowly building it up in my spare time over the last two years. I took some long service leave off at the start of the year and really spent some time digging into actually working on streamlining the process to get it all collated and figured out. I’ve had lovely a lot of help from Julie and my writer friend who’s writing the book without his help, it would’ve been even longer. He’s a fantastic fantasy writer in his own writing and written quite a few novels and I’ve always been able to hit the points of a scene that I want, but he’s really embellished and I’ve chopped and changed a few panels here and that added panels to really bring the story out and the emotion and the characters. But yeah, it’s always a process. It’s always a process, but pencils are usually the quickest. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (20:49):
I admire the fact that you mentioned the other fellow that has giving you a hand tonight, mate, because majority of the heavy lifting is you, but there’s also, you always have help in the background man, whether it’s people encouraging you or people reading your script or helping you where they can do you know what I mean? And I think it’s important to recognise those people as well, mate. So I applaud you for listening, Julian, there

Andrew Law (21:21):
Definitely this story in itself I had sort of laid out and because it’s the first issue, I’m working on basic storytelling and I should have paid more attention back at school in English class, but I was always using the folder paper to draw, but I went through four or five versions of a script and showed people and it still didn’t make sense to them, but words of sometimes I have trouble sort of explaining what I mean. But he was really good at interpreting my gist of what I want for the characters and the growth and the story and all that and putting it into words that like, wow, okay, now it all makes sense and you can’t do it all yourself. I’ve seen a lot of people that try and you got to if you want your story worked in bakeries my whole life. So the theory is presentation and quality, right? Presentation will get anybody in the front door to buy the food, the donut, the cake. But if you don’t have quality, people aren’t coming back. So my drawings are the presentation and his writing is the quality, the story to get you to come back to find out what happens next sort of thing.

(23:02)
And without Julian you would be, it’d just be pretty pictures.

Leigh Chalker (23:09):
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s great man. I do think it’s Naughtiest Art Andrew and Slay.

Leigh Chalker (23:21):
I might be thinking you’ve got a fan there Andrew, like it someone you know there mate. So it’s like

Andrew Law (23:28):
That’s Nathan Judd. Yeah, he’s good at artists in his own right. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (23:34):
He is. I’ve read his comic book and looking forward to seeing that come into print later in the year, early next year, whenever that gets around to happening because it’s very good. While we’re talking about Julian, before I back a little bit, you meet Julian, how’d the two of you, you seemed like you must’ve known him for a while as you were saying you could come in with the gist of what you wanted, but he seemed to have an element of adding some nuance to it just to sharpen it up a bit. So I’m assuming that would indicate that you both know each other relatively well.

Andrew Law (24:15):
Yeah, I went to Supernova in Brisbane, did 2019, 2018, one of them. As a result I was just trying to sell my art book, the Figman and Flame one that I kickstarted and I was just trying to get it out there and shop it around and had the opportunity to get to Supernova and I met him there and we got talking and I did five illustrations for one of his novels. I used to read an old novel whenever nice black and white illustration fitted in to the novel. Yeah, I did about five illustrations for that. So yeah, we’ve sort of back and forth and chatted and known each other for about five or six years now. And yeah, he’s a really nice fellow and fantastic writer in his own and I’m just so pleased that he happy to help me with this project. His own audience has been really supportive of this sort of comic as well, being fantasy based and all that. I can’t speak more highly of him than he’s fantastic with his writing and I sort of throw half, this is what I thinking of this character is like and this and he’ll take it to the next level and I’m just see the words in the script come back and I’m like, wow, I don’t need to change any of that. That’s just spot on. How did your mind read me? Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (26:28):
It’s cool when you get a

Leigh Chalker (26:29):
Chemistry

Leigh Chalker (26:30):
Like that, man. I completely understand that man. I’ve been very lucky to have chemistry with some fellow creators, particularly like on a comic book I was involved in last year, ring around the Rosie with Ben Sullivan, Val and Rob sp Lyle. Just something clicked on that and it was really cool feeling, man. Still to this day I’m very lucky to have Peter Wilson helping me on Battle for Bustle as well and we click as well. It’s a strange sort

Leigh Chalker (27:15):
Talking

Leigh Chalker (27:16):
About and he’s given it back, but that happened. I hasn’t even come out of my mouth, man. How did you do that? Yeah, it’s crazy. Yeah, it’s really cool man.

Andrew Law (27:29):
It’s a connection that you seldom get because you usually in your own little world drawing away and then you connect with somebody who’s on the same wavelength creativity, you’re like, wow, I guess it’s finding a good band member or something like that.

Leigh Chalker (27:48):
Yeah, elevating

Leigh Chalker (27:51):
The musics it is is the chemistry. I’ve spoken about that before, man, trying to find chemistry and Chris Quinlan so keen for this book, man. Been enjoying watching it come together over the years. All right Chris, welcome to the show and thank you for watching and supporting your mate, Andrew. It’s Chris

Andrew Law (28:12):
Is a great artist in his own right and these arts fantastic and he’s been really supportive and he worked for a little time at the secret headquarters comic shop in Beaconsfield here and go in to get your comics and end up bouncing ideas back and forth and doubts and all that and he’s very encouraging. Yeah, he’s a great guy.

Leigh Chalker (28:38):
I’m going to come back to doubts because it’s always an interesting topic I’ve noticed. It seems to come up a lot of late, but we’re going to flip back to little Andrew and he’s busted out Metallica and stuff like that. You’re drawing with your family. Mom and dad are working in the printer business. So you’ve got paper, you’re not allowed to touch the grease paper but you’re just stealing it anyway to hell with the Lamingtons and the lemon meringues or whatever your mom wanted to make that weekend and you want to get into your drawings. What was the comic book other than your cartoons with Astro Boy Star Blazers? You would’ve been into Robo Tech and all that and Battle of the Planets, I’m assuming that would’ve, man, I can’t believe so few people remember Robo Tech, come on. Oh man, the In-Vid. So cool to this day I love the,

Andrew Law (29:37):
Yeah, I’ve been catching up a lot of it. The macros, the Japanese origin of broTECH is now on Disney Plus and they did a whole heap of series star blazers, the space battleship on crunchy roll with an updated version that you can actually, the old cartoon was great but it’s a lot of just moving mouths for 10 minutes. But comic books was, look, I remember grade three I got a how to Draw Bugs of Money and Friends book that’s up on the shelf somewhere there with only half existing. But it was a lot like everybody else in Australia where you just picked up what you could at the comic shops up at the news agent you had transfer was four, number four and number seven. There was an annual in there somewhere. There was a few Phantom comics. My brother was a big Phantom Comics

(30:50)
When I was about 10, my brother gave me a whole heap of his old comics because he was tired of the continuing narrative of a comic. It never ended. So he just wanted to know the end of the story. So I got a lot of old JLA black and white from the seventies and stuff I wish I still had today. I think there was a few GI Joes in there buying Gij in the news agent because, and it had Tomcat in it because Top Gun had just finally just come out, just a lot of here and there sort of things. It wasn’t until there was a bit of a gap to, it was about 16, 17 and we’d go roller skating and found a comic shop in Ringwood on the way back and buy a few and there was some cross, what’s the name of the crossover?

(31:53)
Can’t remember. And I just started buying a few because they were dipping me in and oh, I need to get the next one and I need to get the next one. But it definitely wasn’t until I got my apprenticeship as a bakery and I would sneak down after work to a comic shop in Cheltenham and they had out the back, they had $1 bins of all the old image comics. Well I don’t think they were that old then, but I go in, oh, it’s only a dollar, but yeah, and you go, oh, I like this one. And then you end up spending $70 worth of $1 comics

Leigh Chalker (32:35):
Coming out with a not guilty of that. Yeah, I’m only going down for a couple of comics and walk out there with a box full you’re like,

Andrew Law (32:48):
But then it became a ritual. Every Friday afternoon get the pay packet and jump on the train down the Windsor Dalton at Worlds and buy a four pack of Jack Daniel Stubbies about 50 bucks worth of comics and a pizza on the way home. And that was my Friday night and then back to work on Saturday morning. But that’s the end of the week reward after working all week,

Leigh Chalker (33:23):
What

Leigh Chalker (33:23):
Have you got on the back

Leigh Chalker (33:24):
Of your shelf? What talk in of comic books, because I’m just going to use my powers of deduction and think that you may have read a few things there, man. What’s floating your boat these days?

Andrew Law (33:44):
Well, a lot of Darren Warren Johnson lately, the murder, Falcon and Extremity and Car, Carl Kersels Isla, which is a great fantasy sort of thing. Two volumes in, but a lot of image comics because I love reading superhero stories when they’re done well, but I’ve gotten to the stage where it is always hitting your bank account, but superhero stories when they’re done right with a good artist and a good writer, I’ll pick up and I’ll follow, but majority is just dipping into image comics and finding collections of old comics that I had Crimson and Danger Girl and Battle chasers and I still got to find some that crisp ccao steam punk.

Leigh Chalker (34:49):
It’s amazing, amazing how you got people got their comics in Ringwood says Nick May. There you go. I’m not down that way. But you do hear about that area, man, it seems to have been a bit of a breeding ground for creatives and stuff like that and

Andrew Law (35:05):
Well it was right next to the train station, so as we catch a train to Basewater, the train normally went to Ringwood, so you had to hop off and you had 10, 20 minutes, but you just walk around the corner and see what was there and jump back on the train to Basewater. So yeah, it was accessible.

Leigh Chalker (35:27):
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s cool. I worked at a Woollies for many years when I was a young fella and I did the morning shift man opening up the whole joint from 4:00 AM in the morning till lunchtime and lunch was at like 8, 8 30 in the morning, so it was like news agent across from so straight over there and I’d buy a comic every day and I did that for years man. And you don’t realise how many you start racking up hey until you have a look and there’s just piles and piles of comics, then you’re like, oh, I better slow down. And that’s when I discovered Dollar and it was like bargain

Leigh Chalker (36:20):
In my mind. I was economising, but really I was hoarding. But you do these things don’t regret.

Andrew Law (36:29):
There’s still a few up there, there’s still a few up there from those days. They’re somewhere

Leigh Chalker (36:37):
There’ve got that in the background. There’s so many. I love when I meet people on Tuesday chin waggons and stuff. I’m not someone like Peers a Voya or anything like that, but I do like to have a look at what’s going on in the background. Sometimes man, and I get particularly excited when I see bookshelves full of books. You used to, I don’t know man, but you’d say you’re out and you’d be out with your mate somewhere and you’d be having a good time when you were younger and that and you’d go back to someone’s house for beers and shit and you’d roll into their house and some houses you’d be a little bit like, no, that’s cool. It’s got a chair and stuff like down a fridge, it’s perfect. But then you’d go into some and they’d be like this, wow man, look at what you are reading and you’d just have your mind blown man by what other people were picking up around the places and things and yeah, still got some really good mates from that.

Andrew Law (37:48):
I had a friend who used to work in news agents and he get paid in pretty much books and he had 2000 adss and he’s got so much good stuff that just, I was like, where do you get this stuff from? I could never find it, but he just had it all and they were just the old slain comics and all that. And I’m not just like Lobo comics and all that, all the really stuff like you going, you have to be an adult to buy this.

Leigh Chalker (38:21):
Yeah, no man. I remember coming across, I lived in Gulliver when I was younger and I was only a man, a short bike ride or I’d walk my dog when I was living with mom and dad down at the news agents on the main sort of semi arterial highway road I should say. And man, these two dudes ran in the shop, man, they’re no age. You could walk in there and bought anything, man. They were just like, yeah, whatever. They were all too busy watching the footballer, listening to the

Leigh Chalker (39:00):
Races and betting on the newspaper, TAB mate say half, four bucks. And that was back in the day, the sales sale

Leigh Chalker (39:09):
Dude, my dad and if there’s kids out there, don’t try this and don’t do this to your kids. But I’ll tell you a story of how loose it was back when I was this age, if I was going to this news agent, man, my dad who smoked a pack of thirties, Winnie Reds man a day, he would

Leigh Chalker (39:32):
Write me a note on a little yellow, not sticky and it would say, my

Leigh Chalker (39:40):
Name is Lawrence Chalker. I give permission for Lee to buy me these Winfield red cigarettes and he’d give me buy and I’d go down there and hold out the post-it note to these newsagents dudes and they’d be like, yeah mate, we know your dad. Chuck it down. And whatever the change was, I could get comic books. But yeah, these dudes were loose so they had 2000 adss and everything as well, man. And I soon learned that you could buy two or three, 2000 ads for the equivalent of one Marvel comic at that point because 2000 ad was done on newspaper stuff before I went to the glossy pages and things and yeah, I cottoned onto a B, C Warriors and Bisley and Slain and Necropolis and all these really like wow, I ain’t never seen anything like that.

Andrew Law (40:37):
Yeah, I found a couple, we got across to England to visit my dad’s family and I walked into a little English comic shop looking for something and found a couple of 1988 judge dreads in 2008 Ds and opened it up and there’s judge dreaded driving along the highway and a tornado takes him, it’s all black and white and oh this is really cool. The next page, he’s in the Wizard of Oz and I’m like, what acid trip is this? They’re so cool. Even to this day they’ll blow your bloody mind. Its so wicked.

Leigh Chalker (41:16):
Oh man, they did, man. That was my foray out of superhero stuff into

Leigh Chalker (41:26):
Man

Leigh Chalker (41:27):
Just dudes just cut and stick with their imagination, you know what I mean? These creators and whoever at the time the editors were of those comic books, man hats off to ’em for putting some of those stories out there because they’re wild. I look back on ’em now when I’m having my little reflective moments and going through my boxes and I’m like, wow, man, I was like 11 reading that and you’re like, wow, some of those things still stuck there. My mom would’ve seen me reading some of those comics, man, that would’ve been the end of my comics days. But that’s how it is. But when you are hooking into your dollar bins and your mates and your roller skating around and your mates are cruising and finding the comic shops and you’re doing some travelling, so comic books were fairly convenient for you to duck around, pick up some things, and they’re the fire while you’re in your bakery stage and you are going through your apprenticeships and all that. Were you still drawing or you were just focused on the bakery and reading, so filling your mind full of info and styles and things?

Andrew Law (42:46):
Yeah, I was always drawing always. It’s something that is that sort of, it was the way decompressing daily life, sit down and draw dragons and sit down and copy whatever was around. I remember doing a really wicked ninja turtle and Spider-Man, 1999 and all that 2009 just because the skull on his chest

(43:34)
And always sort of kept it up. It wasn’t until I was sort of hit work got really serious and people were talking about buying businesses and running businesses and realising how long hours running a bakery business would be, 13 hours a day from two in the morning. And my brain went, you really just want to be drawing. And I hit about 25 years old and I just was like, no, I want to draw comics, I want to, this is why I love, this is why I love reading. This is why I like drawing. Let’s start learning. And back then we didn’t have YouTube so we got plenty of books.

(44:26)
Books, any how to book that I could pick up from any place, own Photoshop from a bloody manual that took six months to do what you can find on YouTube with five minutes nowadays. No wonder there’s so many kids creating these days. There’s so many tutorials. But yeah, from 25 I was just like, yeah, that’s when I started drawing pages and then it only sort of dawned on me, it took me for a while because I always draw my own sort of characters and dragons and that, but they’re also fantasy based. But I was trying to get pages drawn of superheroes and just showing my work here and there superheroes doing this because that’s why I thought had to do, you had to go work at Marvel or dc you needed to draw super areas, you needed to draw them good, you needed to draw a city, which I still can’t draw for Spiderman to swing through, but

Leigh Chalker (45:40):
Lots of smoke, Andrew, lots of smoke mate.

Andrew Law (45:46):
Draw fantasy. You didn’t just draw forests. It’s much easier.

Leigh Chalker (45:50):
There you go. There’s some helpful hints for anyone out there struggling with cities smoke.

Andrew Law (46:00):
I always had trouble with straight lines, straight lines on anything was always my downfall goes back to the days where you try and rule with a pen and you move the ruler and it smear your work that you just spend hours on.

Leigh Chalker (46:18):
I feel you to feel the pain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. I’m pretty sure anyone’s seen my final artwork pages if they were going to match panels and that there off and screw with. I don’t know what I do, man. I can’t draw a straight line to save myself either. Andrew, what do you do? Man? I just adapted. I gave up. I just sort of hatched down KJB gday fellas and all the chin lagers. Welcome back KJB. It’s always good to have you mate. Thank you for watching. Yeah, no, I tend to try and stay away from rulers these days, man. I don’t know why you just look man. It’s just you do what’s comfortable. Hey, there’s no straight lines in my comic books. If you’re looking for straight lines mate, you ain’t going to find ’em in battle for bustle, that’s for sure. Everything’s cool kid, but it’s what it is. But look man, I used to try and draw too, I didn’t want to wear glasses for a long time. I wouldn’t give into the fact that I couldn’t see the foot in front of my face. And it wasn’t until one day that I realised that it was basically my nose on the top of the page that I could draw a line. So I suspect that may have something to do with the fact I may not be able to draw straight lines, but it is what it is. And there you go.

Andrew Law (47:51):
There’s not many real straight lines in nature. People will argue the point, but it’s only cities and human needs to make everything in a straight line.

Leigh Chalker (48:04):
Well that sounds like to me the old philosopher from the sixties and seventies, Alan Watts mate, Alan Watts is one of his beliefs is not everything has to be in a straight line and set on a particular destination because man is the one that makes straight lines. And if you look out into nature, as you just said, there’s no straight lines. Everything just works in its organic way, mate.

(48:32)
Yeah, there you go. It’s strange how things connect, but that’s what that thought process of yours there reminds me of was Alan Watts suggesting that. But I like the fact that, so you’re 25, you are like, man, this is what I want to do. You are thinking at that point because as we’ve just spoken on and touched on, there’s not a lot of YouTube, there’s not a lot of shows. You can really find out a lot of info. You’re buying books as I used to buy trade paperbacks. They’d have the 10 or 12 pages in the back that would show pencils and then an inked page. And that was times that I used to grasp like, oh, that’s what it looks like. Things like that. And then so you teaching yourself at this point and what was, and you’re doing superhero stuff, that’s what you thought that you’re trying to, your fantasy it’s burning. Did that draw was of mine or did you just bang, go straight?

Andrew Law (49:38):
I tried to draw my own stories and I’ve got shells full of failures that I’d get three or four. I discovered that I could draw scenes but not draw the whole book. And it was still that artist sort of thing in your head where you’re trying to get better, you’re trying to be the best artist in the world and you’re not really focusing on storytelling, but you’re trying to focus on getting the things looking right. And a good friend of mine smacked me over the back of the head and went, look, I can see your passion in your fantasy characters. Why are you trying to draw superheroes? Well, I thought that’s what you need to do to become a comic book artist. But it just wasn’t gelling.

(50:35)
It was always a little bit, it was like drawing cities. It was a little bit foreign. I love reading the superhero stuff, but when I look back at everything I’ve drawn on my shelf, that was sort of, I tried to draw pages and show people there was a definite difference in quality. There’s the passion in the fantasy stuff and it was more still, I’m trying to work out how to draw superheroes, everything, anatomy and all that sort of, and buildings. It always reminded me of the essays at school that you had to write, which I just

Leigh Chalker (51:20):
Bet you weren’t feeling it.

Andrew Law (51:23):
Yeah, weren’t feeling it. And I think that’s where the passion was, was when that happened I was like, well, I’m just going to work on my own stuff. That’s where my first comic came in. I actually produced, met a guy Jason who was writing a fantasy story and we produced one comic. It should be two issues. It took me four years to get the first issue created, but it was a lot of fantasy stuff and he came from that. The battle chasers background same as me. And it was great to actually produce. I having a ball took me a long while because my whole life I’ve been always put working in bakeries is the hours. And I had Keith Young Mortgage and all that sort of stuff isn’t conducive to actually sitting down and drawing anything, but determination was always there and that’s been a huge driver and actually got the book finished and they did a small print run, still got 30 or so on the shelf, Andrew from about 10 years.

Leigh Chalker (52:50):
Where can anyone that wants to check those books out reach out to you to get some, then

Andrew Law (52:56):
You’d have to grab ’em off the shelf because I’m incredibly proud of the effort, but I’m doing that little bit of an artist thing of, I don’t really want to show people the artwork, but yeah, there’s some cool art in it. I think I produce some cool art in Don’t be

Leigh Chalker (53:13):
Embarrass, everyone starts somewhere, man. It’s good to show that stuff because

Andrew Law (53:24):
Sold, I think I sold a couple of hundred of ’em. They did get out there, but it was only a small run. It was what we could afford. There was no Kickstarter in at the time.

Leigh Chalker (53:38):
So that was back in, that was at a point where you didn’t have yet, now you can go to printers and you can rattle off 25, you can rattle off 50. You know what I mean? Was that back in the day where you were at the offset printers and you had to do your minimum orders and things like that?

Andrew Law (53:59):
We printed, I think we printed 200 of ’em. I think that’s what we could afford at the time, I think.

Leigh Chalker (54:06):
Yeah,

Andrew Law (54:07):
10 years ago now my memory isn’t good for yesterday alone, 10 years.

Leigh Chalker (54:11):
Oh man. Yeah, look, I’m with you mate. It happens. Hey, sometimes I haven’t got to the point though where I’ve forgotten to put my shoes on to go to work or anything like that. Some people

Andrew Law (54:26):
Didn’t. I turned up to work last year with odd shoes on the same brand

Leigh Chalker (54:35):
And come on now you’ve revealed this to the Australian comic book public

Leigh Chalker (54:40):
Andrew, you’ve got to go. Why?

Andrew Law (54:46):
I was running out the door to get to work at four in the morning. You just grabs anything in the dark and there’s a left, there’s a right shoe and you’re halfway through your day and somebody looks down and goes, one of your shoes black and one of them’s blue.

Leigh Chalker (55:02):
Yeah, that’s a new trend mate. The whole

Leigh Chalker (55:05):
Workforce,

Leigh Chalker (55:05):
What

Leigh Chalker (55:06):
Can I do about it now? Nothing. Be more careful tomorrow to co out your shoes than the correct order man,

Leigh Chalker (55:14):
I guess. But that’s funny, man. Hey, I work with a dude who must forget his shoes. Like man, every two or three weeks it’s like he just send you a text message. I’m running late like, oh, I forgot your shoes again. Do it’s like, man, just buy us spare. Leave them in the car, you drunk, go whatever. But hey, everyone’s their own person, man. So it’s all good. So you’ve created that one. What age? You said that took you about four years. I mean man, credit to you for determination too, man, because it’s like four years. You’ve got kids, mortgage wife, you’re working and working those hours. From delving into my recollection, man, when you’re putting four or five days of getting out of bed at three o’clock in the morning trying to be at work at four, you’re working until 12 one. And then you try and have a normal life, which you’re not coming home for a snooze, you’re trying to push it out, man to do everything and you’re wrecked by the end of the week. It leaves zero energy.

Andrew Law (56:23):
You go into bed at the same as your kids.

(56:31)
There’s not much time. It was always, I’m going to go pick up the kids and you go and the wife would go, but it’s only two o’clock in the afternoon, but I’ll get half an hour drawing in before picking up the kids. It was always trying to squeeze in stuff everywhere, five minutes at lunchtime and just I need to work on a panel. So I would cut the page into four and just take the panel and carry it around with me for a couple of days until I got finished. It was just, how else am I going to get it finished?

Leigh Chalker (57:07):
No, man, that’s beautiful, man. That is your determination to want to finish a Goldman. That’s an awesome thing because a couple of months ago I was very lucky to have Dylan nailer on Chinwag and one of the things at that stage, he was saying that he takes his kids out and about to do their things and he takes a drawing pad with him as well. So if he’s waiting, you know what I mean? He’s in the car drawing and that. So you got to do it where you can in what time. I mean that’s just how you fit everything in and your routine to do it.

Andrew Law (57:46):
And that’s where I’m glad technology is caught up with things like iPads and the PC version or whatever it is because it went from taking pens and inks and making a mess in a car on a drawing board before pick school pickup. You can take an iPad with your work on it, you could complete a page, you could pick up where you left off. You could carry the whole book around you and work on whichever page you needed to. All of a sudden these whole books following me around that I can actually, but back then it was a lot of ink spills and a lot of kids would jump in the car and see on the drawings and

Leigh Chalker (58:46):
No, you’re like, you’re nearly like, but you can’t because

Leigh Chalker (58:51):
Nice with kids, they don’t mean it. They’re just happy and enthusiastic and they want to hang around. But I’m one of those dudes that’s 100% traditional. I got around my inks bills by moving on. Weirdly enough, I’m holding one in my hand, these markers, man. And I do a majority of that and to get around Indian ink I use when I’m here because this space that I do bags in is my studio, but if I do them anywhere else and I’m mobile, it tends to be pencils. And I use paint because I find a little tube of black paint is pretty handy as well with a little tiny feathered paintbrush. You can get them cheap as houses, man. So if you haven’t got any water, well, it’s one paintbrush, but you just, again, even the brush. Yeah, it’s adaptability. Everyone’s different processes, man. So do you spend as much time drawing on the iPad as you do traditionally? Because I’ve noticed you’ve been cut and sick with your live stream drawings for the

Andrew Law (01:00:12):
Kitchen. Yeah, when I’ve got time to draw on pen and paper, I want to draw on pen and paper. Majority of the book is all iPad. Some of the sketches, like five minutes at work, you’d look around the lunchroom and you’d find a union leaflet and you’d draw on the back of an idea and you’d get it home and you take a photo with it, put it on the iPad, and then you always trying to sketches. I used to have all these little rough bits of paper sketches of what I wanted the story to be sort just scribbled in at lunchtime sort of thing when you got five minutes to draw. But yeah, 99% of the time on the iPad now because I’m carrying it everywhere and taking it with me everywhere. When I get and sit five, 10 minutes in the car here and there or doctor’s offices, you go to the doctors, it’s great. Oh yeah, take your time. I’m busy drawing. You’re not even

Leigh Chalker (01:01:32):
Doctor Andrew, you’re just dropping in just to draw. Who’s this dude? Man, draw man con,

Andrew Law (01:01:42):
This guy’s been there all day.

Leigh Chalker (01:01:45):
Just let people go in front of you. I’m right, mate. Walk out of clothes and time.

Andrew Law (01:01:50):
No, but I love when I get a holiday because I can sit and I get the inks and the pens and everything out and just let rip on paper and create something a little bit different than what you, you’re just working and working on building up your book

(01:02:15)
Is that one time you can go, I’m going to draw whatever I want and whatever I want is going down on paper because I want a record of it. I don’t want it to be lost in the filing system of technology that you’re never going to see again until you dipping down a dark hole trying to find a I’d file and go, oh, I remember that. Anything that I’ve sketched on the iPad, I try and print out and stick on the wall just so there’s a visual, a paper version of it. Because otherwise it’s all in this blank slate of a thing down the rabbit hole that you forget that you drew stuff and you forget that there was ideas you’re working on to finish. Which reminds me of a drawing I started last year that I was doing for the wife, which I haven’t done, finished yet of the labyrinth, the characters from the Labyrinth. That’s what I’m going to do. Print it out, put it on the wall, then I’ll remember to finish it.

Leigh Chalker (01:03:19):
There you go. See that sounds like a good idea because that’s how originally my wall in here started was when I was doing the what started doing a short story marathon a couple of years ago and man, that was back in my drinking days and I just didn’t have a good memory. I don’t remember doing a lot of stuff, but instead I couldn’t remember where I was putting pages and doing things. So what I started off doing was taking photocopies of the pages so I’d at least have reference instead of going, where did I leave that? I won’t go too much into it, but anyone knows if anyone’s been a regular drinker every day, very heavy, you tend to lose a lot of shit, even if you think you got it in order. It’s like things can disappear and you’ve no idea where they go and it’s horrible, but

Andrew Law (01:04:18):
But I haven’t had the best of memories and I forget things like sometimes some days I can’t organise myself unless I have the right vitamins and the right cup of tea at the right stage of the day and all that. So I’ve got eight pin boards on the wall and every time I get, I’ll print out stuff and stick a pin it up because I’ll start drawing something I’ve already drawn or I progressed it further than what I need and I’ll start drawing something again. And I haven’t remembered that I had drawn it.

Leigh Chalker (01:05:02):
So

Andrew Law (01:05:02):
It starts to become a little bit like those movies where you’ve got scenes just pinned up all over the wall to try and make sense of a timeline and becomes a bit of a mess. But you can look at it and you know where you are. I are in the process. Or you go, oh, I can finish that or add that. Yeah, I understand what you mean. Yeah.

Leigh Chalker (01:05:29):
Yeah, man, I get that because I’ve mentioned it before, it saved my life a lot of times doing it in the way I’ve done it because when I did Battle for Bustle four years ago, and I’ve spoken about this on the show beforehand, man, the comic exists, but I can’t remember finishing pages, starting pages. Fuck man. It was like a 32 page comic book that there’s, since I’ve been sober and I’ve gone through the pages, there’s like 64 or 60 pages, man, some of them have been drawn double and triple. It’s like what was going on? Just no idea, man. So yeah, I’m quite particular about things now and don’t like going back and like yourself, I used to draw some panels where I’d be happy with obviously, and then the rest of the pages. So I’d cut them out and I’d glue them onto pages and try and work things out too, man.

(01:06:35)
So it’s yeah, do silly things too, man. You remember little visual. Yeah, yeah. It is a visual medium and things. I did one man, seriously, man. I tell people because like I’m honest with people and I drew in Battle for Bustle issue four, a character that had an eye piece over her right eye in the previous issues and somehow in battle for Bustle issue four for the whole comic. It’s over her left eye. And thank God before I printed it, the people that were reading it before it went to from the proof section went, Hey, wait a minute, nah. And

Leigh Chalker (01:07:35):
Then I went back and I was like, what have you done? You idiot. So I had to go back, it’s that young, Hey Red,

Andrew Law (01:07:46):
It’s that young Frankenstein movie where Gene Wilder, where the Eagles hump moves from side to side. Wasn’t your hump on the other side? No. Yeah, but asking people about memory tricks years ago, people say if you try and remember something, you format whatever it is, I need to pick up milk. You form it in your head. But because it’s not solid and it’s not a memory, you can forget it. So if you write it down milk, your brain has seen it, it becomes a memory. You’re more likely to remember it. But I applied that to my drawings because you’re constantly visualising things in your head. If I don’t get ’em out and put ’em on the wall again, poof, they’ve disappeared. So having a visual representation of what you are doing around you helps you move to the next thing and helps the brain be a little bit more organised. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:09:00):
Yeah, a hundred percent. Man, that’s a good piece of advice because things that I’ve heard of too, when people do set themselves targets and things like that, visualising what they want, they try and, what’s the word that they use these days where you’re creating something, it’s spiritual you. I can’t think of it. Now maybe someone can send in a message and let me know, but they’re all a suggestion of write everything down because they’re manifesting and all that the people do now. You know what I mean? This is what I want and I’m going to do this. And in writing it down, if you write it down, it becomes a real thing. It’s written, it’s there. It’s sort of committed to it.

Andrew Law (01:09:57):
It’s in reality now instead of in your thoughts. And thoughts can be they can disappear, especially with bad memories.

Leigh Chalker (01:10:08):
Yeah, you’ve got to love that old subconscious, hey, you know what I mean? The play tricks on you and then it’s like, man, where have you gone? It’s like that was the greatest thing that ever happened. I wonder how many people ever got stuck with that happening to ’em. I’m sure quite a lot. So when you printed your comics and you’ve worked out, I like that you mentioned those things, man. Because one thing in the chats on Tuesday nights and stuff, I do like getting little hints from people as well for myself and people that catch it now or sometime in the future as to little bits of assistance. Some things may help and gravitate towards some people’s styles of doing things. Other people may pick up something different. But I think that’s very helpful, man, to just let people know as well, because I’m going to sort of tie that into with doubts that we were talking about before. Because how I’ll bring that together is because when you were talking about your first work that you did that you printed like 200 pages from, and I was talking to you like, well, where can people get that? And you’re a bit some it lives, but some of it’s okay. And you were talking earlier about your doubts.

(01:11:37)
What are your doubts personally with your creativity that afflict you? Because I ask this not to leave you open, but to be honest, I guess with other people out there, because there’s a lot of people in the community and other artists that are trying to get better and getting to a particular level that they want to get to see improvement in their work. And they feel doubts as I do often, and obviously you’ve alluded to what are some of the things with your creativity that leave you a little bit? Where am I at?

Andrew Law (01:12:26):
Yeah, so I look at talking to a lot of other artists. I find a lot of other artists struggle with their own work and their liking of their own work and I’ve one of those who you have to be self-critical to get better and I find a lot of artists I know are two overly

Leigh Chalker (01:13:03):
Critical artist motivational tool. Well said Nick, and it is absolutely,

Andrew Law (01:13:09):
Yeah. But they’re a little bit too critical of their own work

(01:13:17)
And it becomes emotional for them. What they’re feeling about their work and how they don’t like it reflects on their overall mood and we’ve all sort of had bouts of depression and stuff that where you’re just not good enough, you’re never going to get anywhere. We all struggle, but my auntie told me years ago, all your drawings, all your art you create, don’t ever get rid of it. Now I’ve got shelves full of all my art that I’ve ever created over the last 20 years on my shelf. I used to put ’em in scrapbooks and all that because the idea is you had a good idea but you weren’t experienced enough to execute that idea well, and if you go back and you look through some of your old work, you go, oh, I remember that idea. Oh, I can do that better these days and you can achieve what you couldn’t. And a lot of people have this sort of, they don’t know that it takes time to improve. There’s all shelves down there that I’m not ever going to show anybody because I don’t consider it good, but it takes all that

(01:15:18)
To get good. It takes mistakes, it takes trial and error. I still struggle. I was talking to a friend the other day and they were asking me how I do my pencils and inks and stuff. Now sometimes I can sit down what I call the fluke drawing. Sometimes I can sit down and draw something. I’ll do the basic pose and then I’ll draw over the top of it and it’ll come out like finished pencils and then I can go straight to it. This is the one in 10,000 fluke drawings I call every other drawing is I’ll draw the basic pose and I’ll lighten it down and I’ll draw over it with a little bit more details. Facial expressions don’t like it, lighten it down, draw over it, and five goes. Five goes before I’ve got something I like in the pencils at least. And then I’ll move to inks because I find sometimes if I skip from the third go to inks, I’ll go back to the pencils because I haven’t got the expression in the eyes or the mouth right or something. Or you flip it over or look it up at the light. And so it’s still, you watch all your favourite artists draw these fantastic poses and all that. And still to this day, 20 something years after I want to do comics, you sit there and you flip it and you go, oh God, it’s still eyes are out of whack and the head’s over to the side,

(01:17:14)
It’s still there. It’s sort of that myth of people that can draw well, don’t struggle with it. It’s always a struggle. You just got to get to those last five minutes. My goal with any drawing is to get to those last five minutes of the drawing because I know 70 to 80 to 90% of the drawing is it’s getting there. I need to change this, I need to do this. I’m not looking right and all this and you keep hammering away at it and you’re getting almost finished in that last five minutes. You all of a sudden, oh, it’s starting to come together. It is starting to look what I want it to look like. And that last five minutes is like, oh, oh, it’s fine that it’s got there and now I can just embellish a little bit to improve it sort of thing. And that’s the joy of it all and you’ve got to realise that’s still a hard slog to get to those last five minutes.

Leigh Chalker (01:18:22):
Oh yeah.

Andrew Law (01:18:23):
No matter what you do.

(01:18:26)
But yeah, just perseverance and determination being it is a long haul. You talk to some creators and they’re full of ideas and they’re fantastic and all that, that’s great, but you have to put in the hard work to get there. There’s so many time lapse videos and people on YouTube, look what I did. He is told Todd McFarlane, look, this is how you draw this, but if you’re experienced enough, you can see the cuts where he is paused and edited and stuff and yeah, it looks like it’s done in 30 seconds, but in reality he can draw and he’s been drawing for 30, 40 years and all that. So he got the experience. You look at Jim Lee, he puts the pen to the paper and a couple hours later lifts it off and the artwork’s finished. There are those people out there that are savants, but they’ve also put in the hard work and it’s just like anything in life.

(01:19:51)
The hard look. Years ago, back when Phosphorescent Comics was a thing, Australian publisher that was around for a few years, I paid for an entire plane trip, the supernova in Queensland for the weekend because at the time we didn’t have a supernova in Melbourne. We only had anime, I can’t remember the name of it now, but yeah, paid for a trip to get to Queensland. Spent there the whole weekend to go put my portfolio in front of Phosphorescent comics, which was about the only Australian publisher. I drew about a dozen pieces for it and opened it up and showed him and he’s like, where are the sequentials? And all I’ve drawn is pinups and the brain goes, oh, of course

Leigh Chalker (01:21:04):
To

Andrew Law (01:21:04):
Get into comics, you need to draw sequential. You’re going to have these learning moments, you’re going to have these realisations of, duh, I should be doing this, I should be doing that. Unfortunately in Australia with these conventions, go along and put your artwork in front of all the famous artists, get their feedback. It’ll always be usually pretty nice. You’ll have them work on this and work on that. And I like this and I like that, but artists generally give artists positive feedback. They don’t like to tell You’re a new one. And then there was once when the Scott Ellie came out from Dark Horse, he was an editor and I went and put that comic in front of him. I spent four years on and he ripped it to shreds, absolutely ripped it to shreds and I wish I had a tape recorder because every bit of advice was what I needed to hear. It was constructive criticism to absolute nth degree. It was, we don’t have enough of those sort of editors over in Australia at a convention that can help you jump in your knowledge and jump in, oh, the realisation and know what to work on and this is what you need to work on. This is how you do it. You can’t do it this way, you can’t do that, you can’t do this. You need to do this. You need a lot more of that. And we don’t have enough of it in Australia.

Leigh Chalker (01:22:49):
Well, the editing incredibly, it’s incredibly important man. And I think when you’re starting, as you were sort of touching on and you don’t realise and you finally get some sequentials together to have a person that’s put comic books together and can see how things flow and how by changing that you can flip that perspective to quicken or slow the pacing of it down. Do you really need that page? It’s dragging out what is the purpose. All of those questions is sometimes you fail to ask yourself and it’s super important. There’s a lot of people that I’ve spoken to, not just yourself on Chin Wags that often say that a good editor has saved them like some heartache man along the way. And sometimes you’ve just got to, I mean, you just take it as it is. I think sometimes you learn stuff and you take what works for you, what doesn’t, I guess, and just Frankenstein it all together to learn along the way. I’ve been cane too, don’t you worry about it.

Leigh Chalker (01:24:05):
It’s like, okay,

Andrew Law (01:24:10):
We all have, and you still, I still make obvious mistakes because my brain sometimes doesn’t, it learns a rule, but this needs to be this way. I still draw most, if I’m thinking of a panel, my brain goes, I dunno which way it’ll be on the screen, but my brain goes, I’ll draw it right to left the character or the action goes right to left. That’s the way I see it in my brain,

Leigh Chalker (01:24:50):
But

Andrew Law (01:24:50):
When you’re putting it down on the page, it needs to be the opposite way because when you open a book, that’s the way we read. We’re not Japanese. Maybe I should have been born in Japan because to write the opposite way, but I’m constantly, I’ll draw it out in the sketch and I’ll put it on the page and go, oh, flip

Leigh Chalker (01:25:13):
And read. Yeah, yeah, no guilty of that from time to time as well. When you are drawing, while we’re in the thick of it, I do like talking about drawing. I’m a bit passionate about drawing. I mean in case anyone didn’t realise, when you are laying out your stories and things, and you said that what I like about you is I guess to a certain extent you’re doing the posty note thing where you’re getting your bits and pieces you like, you’re putting them on the wall, you’re seeing how things are moving and that. Do you break down when you were talking just earlier about with your iPad and you’re drawing pencils at that stage, you’re drawing your pencils to your first layer. Have you already got thumbnails for that page worked out on the wall or are you drawing and thumbnailing and storytelling fresh onto that moment? And that’s why you sort of have to layer and layer till you get your head around what you’re forming. Does that make any sense?

Andrew Law (01:26:32):
Yeah, it makes sense. I see things in scenes, scenes that are going to happen. A scene can be one page to six pages. So I start drawing sketches as a transition of the scene goes on, one person talking to the next person, talking to the next person, talking to the next person. And quite often as I’m laying out on the first page, I have one or two people and on the next page I have three or four panels and then gets to the end of the scene and I’ve got nine because as I’m drawing, it’s all just the idea is, oh, I just chuck them on the page. This is how I wanted to start. Chuck ’em on the page and these are the follow up of if it’s making sense, this is the follow up panels. And so I sort of sketch out a scene and then I realised that all the drawings have bunched up at the back and I need to stretch them back over. So there’s an equal amount of panels per page. So anything from three to six, I don’t tend to go more than that because I get very, I’ve gotten better at it, but I get very jumbled up when I’m trying to, if I’ve got six panels on a page, it’s because I’ve imported two or three from another page.

(01:28:18)
Most pages tend to stick to three to four panels because if I draw any more than that, my brain gets overwhelmed by what’s happening on the page. It is too much going on and I need to start breaking it down and just work on one panel at a time. And yeah, that’s where laying ’em out and printing ’em out. And I’m usually, I’ll sketch it on a big canvas, not I don’t stick to an A three or whatever. I sketch ’em on three or four size so I can move panels around and I generally print ’em out, cut ’em out and stick ’em up on the wall so I can see a timeline

Leigh Chalker (01:29:08):
And

Andrew Law (01:29:11):
Move around.

Leigh Chalker (01:29:12):
Yeah, yeah. Right.

Andrew Law (01:29:13):
No,

Leigh Chalker (01:29:14):
That’s cool man.

Andrew Law (01:29:16):
Once it’s sort of starting to sit to pages like, oh, these four can fit on that page and it’ll make a nice flow and this, it’s like

Leigh Chalker (01:29:28):
Puzzle and then basically you’ve taken the jigsaw pieces, you’ve got them together on your wall and you’ve formatted the page. So then once that sort of for that scene, and then once that’s done, you can go onto the next lot of jigsaws and visually working about, dude, I don’t know if anyone else that I’ve heard of has done that, but that is a very unique and interesting way of doing it, man. And whatever works, dude, the process is the process, man, whatever gets your goodness on that page, man and comic books out. But

Andrew Law (01:30:08):
It also works for storyline. You hear a lot of writers talk about a timeline of when things happen and I’ve formulated the panels down to a page and a few pages and then you pin the pages up and then you start to form the timeline or that scene works before that one, before that one. Then you realise, oh, there needs to be an in-between scene to get from one to the next

Leigh Chalker (01:30:38):
And

Andrew Law (01:30:39):
You start filling in the blanks. A lot of writers talk about a timeline. If you’re having trouble scripting something, you might have an ending to a story. You might have a starting to a story, but you don’t have the middles stick it up in front of you and work out your steps in between.

Leigh Chalker (01:30:58):
Well

Andrew Law (01:30:59):
Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:31:00):
I’ll tell you what it does remind me of because now that we’re talking,

Andrew Law (01:31:19):
Internet’s cut. I’ve lost the internet. Keep talking

Andrew Law (01:31:57):
Andrew. Yeah, I can’t hear what’s going on. My internet dropped or

Andrew Law (01:32:08):
Lee’s internet has dropped. No, it’s not mine must be Nick.

Andrew Law (01:32:26):
Anyway, I’ve just got me on the screen, so now’s a good time. Check out the link. We’ll go through to my Kickstarter, check

Andrew Law (01:32:38):
Out the link.

Andrew Law (01:32:42):
You have at least a dozen pages up there to peruse. There are plenty of rewards and probably the only possibility of getting commissions from me this year. I haven’t done commissions in quite a few years trying to get this book created. So if you want a commission from me, that is a best chance to do that. But yeah, flame is a fantasy. Fire breathing, dragons, wizards, huge battles like what you read in novels. But when visualised used to read Lord the Rings and stuff and go, oh, I would love to see this drawn or love to see this in a comic book or something, and that’s what I’ve done is taken my own story and chucked it in. Just got a question for a comic, do the dragons talk? Yes, they talk dragons, some of them are shapeshifters, so not in this issue, but that you will see that they can shift into human form to one of them likes to spend a lot of time down on the tavern and drink himself silly, but I watch a lot of things that have a dragon in it and you’ll see the dragon is the thing that the knight needs to get past before taking on the human king.

(01:34:36)
It should be the boss battle should be the dragon. So I’m going to inject a lot of dragons into this. That’s what I’m looking forward to seeing. There’s two in the first issue and one’s will be one of the main characters, Devin Kari, which he’s a little bit of a lost soul, but he’ll find his way through the story and some other that created by some dark wizards to take down the world.

Leigh Chalker (01:35:22):
Hi Lee walking of Wizards bloody internet thanks to Susan.

Leigh Chalker (01:35:31):
Good mans. That’s why he’s the real wizard. I dunno what happened. Their technology, it’s beyond me. I’m a technological rice cake. But what I was getting back to Andrew, sorry to interruption when it is great talking about with is it reminds me of French cinema. A lot of those dudes used to take 32 point notes, right? So 32 notes of

(01:35:57)
Scenes and then they would put them on a wall and they would move them around until things started making sense and then they would drop that into this is how I connect that, that’s how I connect that. So I guess what that reminded me of your process there meant to a certain extent. Again, it’s just strange how everyone’s connected, but all the processes are different mate. I spend ages doing each different page. For me, every issue is different. Sometimes I write a synopsis and do the thumbnails and then sometimes I have the script and then do it off that and then other times I’ve got the script and then go back, sorry, the artwork and then I go back and do the script. So it’s whatever it is, but I just wanted to ask you, man, it’s like your artwork that I’ve seen on Kickstarter and all that very visual, very big, there’s a particular image of your dragon and you’re looking at it from over the shoulder and its wings are out, there’s an image and it’s a beautiful image to me. It’s really nice wide shot and yeah, it struck me. My question to you again while we’re on the artwork is who you were like an image you liked your image comics and stuff like that, but who was a primary artist?

Andrew Law (01:37:32):
Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:37:33):
Michael Turner. He was really like, aha, gotcha. I can see that and I can see, oh god, I can’t think of his name now. He was a DC artist. Do hunt.

Andrew Law (01:37:52):
Yeah, ed Beans. No,

Leigh Chalker (01:37:56):
No, no. He was a very clean artist. Possible. I don’t know. But anyway, we’ll get back to your man, but what attracted you to him? What was his comic book that you

Andrew Law (01:38:11):
I walked into the comic shop down in.

Leigh Chalker (01:38:14):
That’s the stuff.

Andrew Law (01:38:16):
Yeah, I walked into the comic shop down in Cheltenham and there was a witch blade number one on the shelf and I picked it up and I had a look through it and I went, oh, this art’s really cool. I don’t like the painted cover and put it back. And a month later I walked in an issue two was in an issue, one was $30 or something ridiculous on the shelf and I was like, oh, I missed out on something. So I picked up issue two and it was sold ever since. It was just, it just had you found your favourite band?

(01:38:58)
Something about Guns N Roses? When I was a teenager, that was just my soul music for the longest time. The subject matter, not so much, but that guitar ring was slash playing. It just played my tune and that’s what Michael Turner was for me and every band that has their influences from the generation before, no matter what I do, like the structure or when I’m sketching out my poses and that there’s the Michael Turner influence in there. They’re all sort of structured like the way not, I don’t know this is the way I see it, but I see the Michael Turner poses and go, oh, okay, but now I need to try and improve on top of it, not stop being the fan and start being your own self. Never being a chaser of style. Just create it so it looks good in your own head.

Leigh Chalker (01:40:18):
Yeah, well that’s where you were getting to before about the doubt. When you can get to that point of because you are your own worst critic and sometimes chasing perfection man is one of those things that you’re never going to catch. So you do have to get to a certain point where if you think it’s cool, I’m happy with that. You may see you need, hey, I could do that better, but I’ve got to get it done now. I’ll remember the next time I try and do something like that I’m going to have, but for now, this is where I’m at. You were saying that’s my skill level, you take a note. I’ve got to work on that. I keep little notes of things too that I’ve got to work on just man, I dunno. For example, hands when the first issue of Battle for Bustle came out, I just remember I struggled with hands a lot, so I spent a month man, quite literally taking photos of my hands, like people’s hands that I knew, holding things, doing things and would just draw hands and my man, how many hands are you drawing? I draw. You just improve.

Andrew Law (01:41:38):
Hands are still an issue, hands are still an issue. I had a friend walk into a room a couple years ago into my little drawing room and he looked at all the pictures I had sketched out on the wall and goes, wear all their hands. You must struggle with them. I’ve got the sketch out of the pose, but the hands are missing. I’ll work on the hands later. I can drive feet better than can Hands.

Leigh Chalker (01:42:07):
Hands, yeah. Yeah, they can be tricky hands. They’re one of those. I think if you can, it’s quite amazing hands in art and not just comic book art but in paintings and things like that too or any medium, you can get just as much emotion across with hands as what you can with eyes or facial features and stuff. I mean simple like stop, like backhand, fight. Just little things man. Integral,

Andrew Law (01:42:45):
I’m glad it’s an extension of the expression. Just a hand in front of a person’s face is just help it portrays what you’re trying to get off in the facial expression and it helps. But yeah, they still are.

Leigh Chalker (01:43:12):
Well Shanie just chucked up a comment there mate that said that’s what pockets are for. So maybe that’s a trick if we ever get to, everyone can walk around in trench coats and stuff, man, and shoot people from inside their pockets like they used to in fifties. Detective like Robert Mitchum movies, man, see some dude in the corner. What’s he doing? Bang. And a little hole in pockets. See they thought about that. Thanks Sean. Look at where my mind went into these strange areas and Andrew liked that one too. I abo smile on his face. Yeah, Andrew, sorry about the look man, I have no control over the internet obviously and the technological wonders of this universe like man has provided us and particularly in Australia with the NBN, but some of the fluidity of Chinwag over the time has been myself or other guests just dropping out for short periods. So for that I do apologise, but you’re natural mate. It didn’t seem to panic,

Leigh Chalker (01:44:16):
Which is good. We had Siz there. I think Siz might’ve had a little bit of panic on him from look at him briefly there. I think he might be thinking,

Andrew Law (01:44:25):
I thought it was my end. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:44:27):
Yeah, yeah. No, no, I

Leigh Chalker (01:44:29):
Don’t know man. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then just gone and then you come back. But that’s

Andrew Law (01:44:35):
When it works. It’s great when it works. It’s great modern technology. When it works, it’s great when it doesn’t

Leigh Chalker (01:44:42):
Agree.

Leigh Chalker (01:44:44):
Okay, Jeffrey is asking, you’re a Witchblade man, Andrew, so what do you think of the Witchblade reboot?

Andrew Law (01:44:54):
The issue was here yesterday, issue two really delves into the first one. I was like, they’re rebooting, so they’re treading over the same thing. And I’m like, yeah, I prefer the first. I still prefer the original to the first issue. I can see where they’re going. Issue two though, they really delved into the mindset of gaining the witch blade, which it was sort of in the original, it was like Spider-Man, when he got his powers, he was off being Spiderman, I’ve got my powers, I’m doing this stuff sort of thing. Same with the witch blade. She gained the witch blade and then she was using it or not using it or struggling with adapting to it sort of thing. With this new one, you can really see that she’s really thinking it through and experiencing what is happening to her. So I think they’ve really sort of hit a deeper level of thought into creating the book. Interested to see how it goes in issue three. But I’m impressed in the writing, the artwork I like. It’s not something I would normally, I think he’s 90% out of a hundred percent sort of thing. Really good art, really functional art, really good storytelling. Just needs a little bit for my brain to go, oh, he’s an Alister. I’m not putting him down or anything, it’s just my taste. But yeah, the issue too that I reckon the arc works better definitely. He really is coming into his own. He really tells the story well, but yeah, yeah, I’m enjoying it.

Leigh Chalker (01:47:18):
How many stars?

Andrew Law (01:47:20):
How it is hard. It’s like watching whenever they do a reboot like the Disney doing the Lion King and all that sort of stuff, the live action ones, it makes you go back and read, watch the original and because you really enjoyed the original, the new ones are for a new generation, I understand that. I enjoy, they’re okay, I’ll go back and read the original with this one. I’m really sort keen to see where it goes and I probably, I dunno, I’d give it an eight and a half hour 10 maybe. Yeah. Just because I’d still prefer Michael Turner drawing it, but that’s not going to happen.

Leigh Chalker (01:48:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s cool. I didn’t even realise there was a Witchblade reboot out man. I’m myself so out of touch with all of those sorts of comic books. Yeah, I’m very minimally aware. I’m just deeply embedded in Australia comic at the moment. I going to the portal. Alright, Shawney,

Andrew Law (01:48:44):
It’s up here somewhere.

Leigh Chalker (01:48:46):
Hang on bud. We’ve got been a bit in and out so I’m not sure if this has been covered already, but do you work complete page to page or pencil, the whole book then in the whole book? I guess to an extent we have covered that, but Andrew give Shanie one of their regulars and a great fan of X, A bit of a quick page to page pencil. The whole book then Ink the whole book.

Andrew Law (01:49:17):
No,

Leigh Chalker (01:49:19):
No. I reckon Sha, if you go back about 15 minutes mate in the video you’ll probably get all the information you want.

Andrew Law (01:49:33):
I work on, how do I explain it? So when I used to draw pinups or posters before I started drawing sequential, I draw the idea and then walk away from it and the next day I come back and I would go, oh, and I’d add a bit more to it. I’d have an extra, an idea, an extra idea, and over the course of the week you’d build up into an idea. I cannot draw a full page because I’ll have the basic layout and ideas, but I’ll have a really good idea for that panel, the first panel. But the second panel, it’s still got some percolating to do. So I’ll go work on a different page, which I’ve gotten an idea for a different panel that, oh, I’ve got an idea for that panel over there because it’s all laid out. You’re sitting there, you’re looking at the wall and you go, oh, I know how to finish that panel and you work on that panel, it’s all over the place, but it’s always a panel after panel after panel. So it is still chugging along. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (01:50:56):
As you go.

Andrew Law (01:50:58):
Yeah. But yeah, definitely once I’ve gotten to inks colours, it’s still in the working out processes. There’s no to keep the enthusiasm and the determination going work on bits that I want to work on or I have ideas to work on and eventually you’ll whittle it down to there’s half a dozen panels left that you don’t want to work on, but you have to.

Leigh Chalker (01:51:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guilty of getting to those man, you always can’t out rub them, Hey no,

Andrew Law (01:51:43):
They’re always there. They’re always there.

Leigh Chalker (01:51:46):
It’s

Andrew Law (01:51:46):
Always got to to do with the building.

Leigh Chalker (01:51:48):
They’re always the ones too man that are most important to the storytelling. You know what I mean? They’re not the flashy stuff you like drawing. They’re the little nitty gritty things that you got to get right. Alright Andrew, so mate, I am going to move us into your project of the moment. I want you to be able to sink your teeth in and really get across to people like what Slay He Is all about that address. For any of you out there, if you can’t see it and you’re off drawing or listening, doing the dishes or doing whatever you’re doing, it is slay he S-L-A-Y-M n.com. That will take you to the Kickstarter and basically I’m going to let Andrew give you the, well, what is it, Andrew, for any of the people out there that have no idea.

Andrew Law (01:52:46):
So can I share a screen so I can show you a video?

Leigh Chalker (01:52:50):
You sure can. You should be able to do that somewhere there. If not, siz should be able to give you a hand, man. But yeah, I’m a technological rice cake.

Leigh Chalker (01:53:07):
Don’t look at me, I can’t get the internet to work.

Andrew Law (01:53:15):
Turn it on, turn it off again, that’s all I know. That’s it.

Leigh Chalker (01:53:19):
Give it a kick on the way,

Andrew Law (01:53:25):
Unplug it, walk away from it, swear your head off, come back and come back and it should work. So this is a video from the Kickstarter. I don’t think the sound will come through. It didn’t last time, but this is Raven Tho and he’s after Crystal Shard, he’s out for revenge. He’s been outcast by his society and he’s out to find the crystal to get his revenge. This is my dragon that he encounters along the way and this is some of the dark dragons that are out in the world causing havoc. They’re trying to tear the world down, but yeah, he’s a lot of, we’ve got some wart tellers here, which are sort of like wizards are from the Southlands. They’re helping defend from the Dark Dragons.

Leigh Chalker (01:54:35):
Yeah, yeah, so with Slay He Here and these characters because man, that’s some sweet looking artwork. Dude, I got to tell you, those dragons are pretty cool looking too nice and visual. How long did it take you to set? Obviously Slay Hem is a work of passion. You’ve been doing it for a few years. How have you felt getting it to the level now yourself in a creative sense that it’s nearly coming to fruition in front of you mate? And Nick may agree is the art is great, can’t wait to read the book, neither can I. How are you feeling about it now?

Andrew Law (01:55:22):
I am just overjoyed because Nick can’t wait to read the book. I can’t wait to have it in my hands. It’s been a dream to create something and to be my own creation on top of all that is just phenomenal to have all the pieces of the puzzle almost together and we are almost ready to ship it off to get approved from the printer. It’s just, look, I’ve got issued two and three sort of half sketched out on the wall and I’m ready to dive into that to create more, but just can you tell I’m a book nerd, right? I’ve got books of galore

(01:56:29)
Galore. That’s cool man. These are things I worship and to have something that I could put on the shelf next to them that I’m just thoroughly overjoyed. It is been a lot of hard work, a lot of hard slog. I’ve gotten to the stage this year that I quit at work. I got a little bit of savings in my bank to let’s try and finish it and let’s try and get this off the ground. I know I’m going to have to go back to work by Christmas and I’ve got sort of a job lined up, but in the meantime I’m just going to draw and just create every day as much as I can. Yeah, it’s cathartic. Yeah. Amount of times. The amount of times I’ve spent 10 hours in a bakery and then had to go do a couple of shifts at Safeway or sorry, Woolworths days the other day I sat down, I think I did about 10 hours of drawing and like, oh my God, I’ve dreamed of doing and for the time being to get this finished and get this off the ground, what I do, check the hard work in and see how it goes.

(01:58:14)
I think of those hours like stacking shelves at three in the morning and getting a scribble of paper in my pocket and scribbling down the idea and put it in and going back to monotonous of stacking shelves and all that hard work has been getting to this point.

Leigh Chalker (01:58:37):
No, I get you man. I totally understand. I hope I get to be on one of the other Comex live streams in the near future with you on it man. And you’ve got your proof because I love if you think you’re excited now when you get that thing back and you are sitting there, you know what I mean, and you’re actually holding it and smelling it and stuff like that,

Andrew Law (01:59:14):
I’m going to smell it. I’ll go,

Leigh Chalker (01:59:15):
Oh yes, another member of the Comic sniffers club. If anyone’s just tuning into this show for the first time, that may sound odd out of context.

Leigh Chalker (01:59:29):
Go back and watch a few episodes and you’ll understand. But again, like bottle of comic mate, that’s the cologne of this channel at least anyway, but man, yeah, there’s nothing better. Hey, I reckon you’d be smiling like a Cheshire cat man. Sean, is there a bit of grief that it’s coming to an end?

Andrew Law (01:59:50):
No, because there’s a second and a third issue planned. Yeah, yeah, it’s continuing and with the pandemic the last few years and there was a lot of time to sketch a lot of it out, so there’s a lot of, it’s already laid out. Like I said, I’ve got eight pin boards, three up here full of issue two the back of my door, it’s all issue three blue ack on the back of the door. It’s just, I am not getting ahead of myself though, but all focus is to be your number one and get number one out. I’m not going to get ahead of myself whether it’s successful or not. I’ve got to be the time this year and I’m going to dig into issue two and create my own empire strokes back there.

Leigh Chalker (02:00:54):
Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (02:00:55):
Yeah. Well the other thing is too, man, it’s something that comes up a little bit too, as you just said, success. I mean everyone has a different version of success and I mean judging from how happy and excited you are about the prospect, this dream project of yours coming together and the situation that you’ve got yourself in, there’s elements of success in every perception of leg of the journey to make and

(02:01:36)
Dream. I mean one of my funny things that I always say to people is some people think a house is success and some people when I own a dog mate, it just depends on the level that you want to get to with you. I can relate to with you deciding to stand down from your work. Because I decided once I got sober that one of the things that I did man, is I totally rearranged my whole life, man to block work into certain days and I compartmentalise my mind now it’s just part of my ritual that I have to do. That’s part of recovery and things. So I’ve got block days that I know what I’ve got to do, tasks that I’ve got to get done and then I have several days where it’s like this is what I’m doing from 5:00 AM in the morning. You know what I mean? All the way through to at least four or five in the afternoon. There’s no bullshit. It’s like the only reason I stop for cigarettes and things and if I don’t feel like doing it that day, it’s just too bad. You are doing it and you just push through and sometimes some days are better than others, but man, you’re an example to one step at a time. If it’s just one panel today or one panel this week, you know what I mean? You’re still on your way to putting it together and you’re still making it happen meant So I mean progress is progress and dictation as it needs to.

Andrew Law (02:03:21):
There was, I think Mark Wade said Mark Wade might’ve been repeating somebody else, but some comics wrote it was saying being successful in nearly anything that you do, you need three things, talent, you need determination and you need to be on time. Now, I dunno about the other things, but I’ve always had the determination and it was this year where the pages were starting to come together was like, I’ve got to use it before I get too old and the determination goes out the window. The determination has always been keeping me at it and by the sounds of it, like you were explaining your days, you’re determined, you’re determined to do it. You’re determined to sit down and do what you enjoy or do what you need to do to

Andrew Law (02:04:28):
Create

Andrew Law (02:04:28):
What you want to create. And there’s some satisfaction in that and that’s its own level of success. If you are getting to do what you want to do instead of the daily grind or I’ve worked my whole life, you name it, whatever hour shifts from 11 o’clock at night, eight o’clock at night, two in the morning, three in the morning, pay the bills, pay the mortgage, take care of the family responsibilities, that’s all. It’s all what comes first with me and the drawing has always had to come second and I’m quite happy for it to come second because you hold family and responsibility is above that and to get a chance to flip that for a short time, I’m going to take it. I’m going to work my fucking ass off.

Leigh Chalker (02:05:35):
Yeah,

Andrew Law (02:05:39):
They say if you find a job that you love, something that you love and you’ll never work a day in your life, well that’s bullshit. If you find something that you love, you work your fucking ass off to make sure you keep bloody doing it, you make sure you put in the bloody hard work to make sure you can achieve what you want to bloody achieve.

Leigh Chalker (02:06:07):
Yeah, well then you’ve got to put work in. It’s like the other is too. The other thing is too, from putting work into anything, I mean it’s not the art, it’s not just artwork, it’s writing or any skill or creative thing that you want to do. It could be gardening, it could be anything. I’m a big believer in creativity in general is good for mental health as well, but sometimes

(02:06:35)
Drawing comic books can be lonely. It’s not something that you can have tanny and mates sitting over there yapping away to you while you’re right in the middle of doing something that’s essential to the comic book. I mean, I choose to do what I do in my lifestyle because I have the opportunity and much like yourself mate is like I’m in my mid forties, I’ve worked man, I’ve done everything from sweeping floors to furniture to house removals and stuff like that to pay bills and food on the table and shit like that. And it just got to a point as well, man, after spending 20 years as basically a drunk, you know what I mean? And not putting enough time into my work, I thought, well, from speaking to people that were older than me, family mentors and stuff in the community, they very early on reminded me that, hey, you’re not getting younger.

(02:07:56)
You got to look after your eyesight. Something could happen to you next week. You may get sick, you don’t wish anything onto anyone at all, but this stuff does happen at some point and you’d rather have a go at something earlier than if I do it tomorrow, I’ll do it next week. I’ll do it next week. Well, I can tell you, and you are possibly the same, so I don’t want to speak for both of us, but I will. And I don’t like doing it, but I will assume we’re on a similar wavelength is what we wanted to do when we were 25. We put off because other responsibilities got in there and now we’re at this age and we’re like, you know what, hey, got to go. It’s now. It’s now.

Andrew Law (02:08:42):
And now comes the new fear of I’m getting older, I want to be able to finish this before I car it.

Leigh Chalker (02:08:52):
Yeah, yeah,

Leigh Chalker (02:08:53):
No, I have that fear too, man. Every year the comic book gets an issue shorter. It started off at nine issues and then I’ve got all two years ago I was like, I can get 12. And then now people ask me, how many issues is it? And I’m like, fucking be lucky if it gets to five or six.

Leigh Chalker (02:09:19):
But just the things that happen to you man, but just, yeah, it’s life gets in the way sometimes, but don’t give up on things mate. That’s what success is differently too. And the Australian comic book industry is a little bit different to the other international things, but no less community based and supportive mate and very encouraging and there’s plenty of people out there like yourself who are happy to pass on their stories and tales and things that you’ve learned through it and everything.

Andrew Law (02:09:54):
One thing I love coming out of speaking to recently with all these comic streams and you get the chance to actually talk to other creators, we’re all artists that in the corner of the dark room creating what we want to create, screaming out to the world, Hey, you notice me is the concepts that come out of them and you talk to them and you help them out a little bit with as much advice as take what you will out of this is my experience. I am never somebody who’s, you got to do it this way, this way, this way, this way.

(02:10:42)
You just like, this is what worked for me, this is what worked for other friends that I know that are doing similar thing. Take what you want out of it and try and apply to it to get to a new level. But the concepts that come out of the younger creators heads and all that, I love what people are doing. Going to Bendigo Con and chatting with other, catching up with a lot of people they haven’t talked to for years and all that and just hearing what their ideas and what they’re creating sort of thing. I love this sort of stuff. It creativity, it spurs more creativity.

(02:11:28)
It energises you and makes you want to do more and helping others when you can is a great thing. It is rewarding in its own self. You can make some great friends by being kind and being helpful. It’s too many nasty people in the world that won’t give you the time of day stuff. Them find your own crew, find people that you can bounce off of internet these days. Sure it drops out, but you can talk to people in Queensland, you can talk to people in Perth, you can talk to people in Tasmania, try and keep conversations going and groups going and catchups and all that. I was always petrified to get into the city, to the Melbourne creators catch up because it is scary and we’re, most of us are at least some part introvert and putting yourself out there sometimes doesn’t work. You’re at conventions and you watch people go by and you go, I’ll hand this out to the next person and the next person walks by, I’ll hand it out to the next person, next person walks by. Okay, hi. But the Melbourne creators been in twice this year and I’ve had nothing but great conversations and it’s a forcing yourself to get out of your comfort zone to make those conversations happen. But it’s incredibly rewarding in its own self, especially after what we’ve been through in the last whatever, how many years it was. We struggled with this covid shit. But yeah,

(02:13:42)
Try and get yourself out of your comfort zone. Go chat with some other creators, whether it’s online or meetup or something, and it will spur you on. They’ll encourage you and you encourage them and we’ll make a better brighter world, a better or some better comics.

Leigh Chalker (02:14:02):
Mate, I think everything you just said then pretty right on the spot to how I think too, man. I think it starts with kindness. I think it starts with service, which is helping people any way you can in a community. I just think there’s no other way of doing things. I’m not one for negativity. I don’t like it in people I don’t like and people can have opinions. We’ve spoken about that, but with me, I get immense joy, man out of feeling your energy and your smile at the end when I asked you about, I can’t wait to see your proof, and you were like, oh, I’m going to sniff that book and you got GED up because that is to me what it’s about. I remember my first comic book coming to me and that was the moment where I never cared if I never made another comic book at that point.

(02:15:05)
You know what I mean? It was the determination to do that and get it done. And then it was through meeting people like-minded in the community like yourself and earlier on with a lot of the other guys that started it off and then getting to meet the other people that had been doing this stuff for 20 or 30 years and then being invested and realising that there is so much history in Australian comic comics that people don’t even understand or grasp the depth and the talent and the amount of work that’s out there and still to be uncovered again or a light put on it again some years later. And the hard work, the determination, the tears, the blood, the loss that goes into the thing that I’m pretty sure we all wonder why we do it, but there’s the compulsion and the necessity within us to tell a story. And there’s so many different we

Andrew Law (02:16:11):
Do do it because we can’t not do

Leigh Chalker (02:16:15):
It’s it. I was talking to someone yesterday and I was showing him some sketches of the next issue of battle for bustle. That’s all done on paper and everything. I start inking this weekend and a few pages is done, but real crux is like, man, I’m back up five o’clock in the morning sitting here. And man, I thought to myself, man, I must be a masochist mate.

Leigh Chalker (02:16:46):
What am I doing? I just have to, there’s no other way you can describe it. So you’re

Leigh Chalker (02:16:53):
Lucky that there is a community of like-minded people around you to encourage you man, when you have those moments of doubt, I have doubt. There was certain time after the last issue came out, man, in the last few weeks I’ve been like, do I really want to do the next issue? Maybe I could put it off for a bit longer, but it’s nah, got to do it. You’re not being yourself if you stop being creative, if you’re a creative, you know what I mean? So anyway, you can get it done then get it done.

Andrew Law (02:17:28):
It’s very hard to stay creative. You have to have the inner child. It is a lot of people that you come across in your life, in your working life that you tell a joke to and they just don’t have a sense of humour to. It’s like the creativity got drummed out of them and now they’re serious pain in the neck and you have to have inner child.

Leigh Chalker (02:17:58):
Yeah, you do man.

Leigh Chalker (02:18:00):
You do. You got to look.

(02:18:03)
It’s strange that you go down these paths because obviously I’ve gone down a path and I find it interesting that some of your philosophies while not coming from the same path that I’ve been on intersect particularly with that inner child type thing and the fact that I mentioned it before, you draw as a kid and you paint as a kid, but you get to a certain age and it’s drummed out of you to be creative. You got to go and toe the line, do this, you got to do that. And it’s like, I don’t know man, because it’s like until I came back to being in touch with that little person inside of me that wanted to draw all the time and wanted to get it out, I was a miserable so-and-so man, and life wasn’t making much sense to me, man. But now over the last couple of years that I’ve really started to get in touch with myself, I’m feeling pretty good and pretty aligned with what I’m doing. I also find in a strange way that the best ideas come to me when I’m not thinking. It’s if I think too hard on something, it escapes me. And then because I practise meditation twice a day and every time I meditate and I drop into my zone generally I find that once I’ve come out of that, it’s almost like an absolute waterfall of all of those ideas and things that I couldn’t quite connect together just, and it’s like, okay, I just had to quiet my mind for that bit, man to process.

Andrew Law (02:19:45):
The front of your brain is getting in the road of your subconscious. You’re trying to work on the problem. The subconscious has worked it all out. You’ve just got to shut the front part out. So the subconscious goes, I’ve got the answer, I’ve got the answer. I’m trying to tell you, just calm down, quiet your mind. And I’ll tell you,

Leigh Chalker (02:20:07):
That’s why you can’t rush some things too. That’s what I realise now is everyone’s like, stop. It’s coming. Just when you’re chilling, you know what I mean? It’s like it’ll just like, you know what I’m talking about those moments, looking at it, I dunno. You’re just water in the yard and you’re drifted off and you’re actively meditation even not meditating even though you’re meditating and then suddenly it’s just like, hey, wow, there it is. And then you go and get your,

Andrew Law (02:20:42):
I’ll say it on record that Paul McCartney during some documentary said the bit of paper and the pen by your bed at night because when you lie down and relax and go to sleep, you have your ideas. And he said, if I didn’t have that bit of pen and paper, then there wouldn’t be the song the yellow submarine. And I was like, maybe there shouldn’t be the song The yellow submarine.

Leigh Chalker (02:21:10):
Yeah, yeah, maybe you’re

Andrew Law (02:21:11):
Right, man. Yeah, it’s always when you don’t plan for it, like I said, stacking shells at three in the morning and these ideas that come to you and you’re like, I can’t stop write down. I just need to have some sort of inkling of idea. Write it down so my brain will remember it later. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (02:21:34):
Yeah, no, I get you. I get you.

Andrew Law (02:21:38):
Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (02:21:39):
Yeah. It’s just everyone their own way, mate, you and I have sort of found our point at a similar age and we’ve had to go through what we’ve got to for you to get to your success and for me to get through battle for bustle, which my goal is to finish that and sort of everything else comes secondary. Do you know what I mean? To that now and then we’ll see where I’m at after that. But that’s the mission. But everyone has their goals and everyone does their thing. Everyone has their own roles and paths, man. And you just flow with it and do what you got to do and be like you be determined and focused and be chipping away as we start winding down our show tonight, mate with C. I’ll get you to bring up slay.com again, please mate, for everyone out there that hasn’t looked at the Kickstarter, for those not watching S-L-A-Y-H-E-M n.com, you have met the creator artist, very fine artist that’s worked very hard to do the work and plenty of time you’ve heard his story.

(02:23:01)
It’s his work, his mate Julian’s helped him out with a lovely script, got the nuances to create this beautiful piece of work. Andrew desperately wants to smell this comic and he wants to get it into your hands and put it on your bookshelves and partake and get it out to you and show you everything that he’s been working on. Go to that Kickstarter, back it. There’s plenty of tears. I’ll let you take over what you got in terms of your add-ons mate, and you can let the people and the viewers know what they’re in for when they jump on there.

Andrew Law (02:23:44):
So yeah, we have not only the comic, we are offering a sketch cover as well. If you want to sketch cover variant. I like buying sketch covers and drawing on ’em, not to resell ’em, just to keep for myself. We’re actually making Julian’s writing up a audio descriptive version, A PDF that will go out as well. We have a few people that we know are blind that would love to read this story. So the PDF, that’s a descriptive version of every panel so they can play it and hear what the story is. We have that. I have got commissions, there’s a couple of tiers. There’s one tier where I’m offering a five sketches, another one where I’m offering the sketch cover that I’ll draw a sketch on the cover for you. And there are some other higher priced a three commissions and the first time I’m actually offering colouring for any sort of commission as well.

(02:25:03)
I think there’s only one left of those available. But we also have, Julian’s very kindly put in three of his novels is trilogy of novels though if you’re into fantasy novels, it’s a Viking based mythology trilogy that is extremely so. Yeah, we have one tier that has the short novella to dip your toes in or we have a tier that’s got all three of the novels for you. Also offering my previous art book as well. There’s only a limited amount that I’m offering through the Kickstarter because it is an expensive thing to send. So there’s bit more, a little bit more on the shipping, but I had plenty of requests to make it available on the Kickstarter, so I’m quite happy to bear the brunt of some of the shipping for that because it is a heavier, it goes up into the package, the parcel category instead of just the flat pack for the book.

(02:26:27)
But yeah, if you want to dip your toes in, I’ve got the $9 digital copy as well, so you can read it on your iPad or your computer as well. I have a lot of friends that create comic books, but they’re overseas and I would like to support them and I would like to read their comic as well, but I can’t, sometimes you just can’t afford $30 to ship out. So I’ve put the digital copy on just so if you want to dip your toes in it’s $9. It’s not going to hurt your bank. I know everybody’s struggling out there at the moment. I’m in the same boat.

(02:27:13)
But yeah, there’s plenty of different options there. I got also some add-ons. There are, there’s six or seven sketches I did up of the characters there available to add-ons. Nobody’s snapped them up yet, but there’s only one of a kind of them, so there’s only seven sketches there. But if you would like one of them that’s there as well. I think I’m covering everything. But yeah, there’s plenty of options. If you go to say.com, it will send you through to the Kickstarter and I think I’ve laid it out pretty self-explanatory, plenty of pretty pictures, but even so, I’ve been sharing some of the letter pages on Instagram and Facebook and car and dreads and TikTok and I think that’s all I’m trying to cover all bases. I’m trying to get it all out.

Leigh Chalker (02:28:27):
No, that’s what you got to do. There’s plenty of how long you got left

Andrew Law (02:28:30):
In campaign? Nine days. Nine days. We

Leigh Chalker (02:28:37):
Nine days.

Andrew Law (02:28:40):
We’re almost 70% at the time. So

Leigh Chalker (02:28:42):
You got nine days.

Leigh Chalker (02:28:43):
Nine days to bring home. 30%. Hey, to get the dream done. Alright, now, Nick may put a comment up before and I second it if Shane can bring it up and it’s come on viewers. See this Kickstarter, get over the line. ASAP. You’ve met the man this evening. Viewers from Chinwag. You’ve heard the eloquence. Chase a dream trying to plug away at it. Fine artist, great creator, nice man as we’ve seen it. Slay him.com. S-L-A-Y-H-E-M n.com is where you can go back that Kickstarter, get Andrew and Julian over the line. You get it in your hands and we can see Andrew smiling like a Cheshire cat in a couple of weeks. What it’s all about, man is helping our brother across the line. So we do what we can do. Andrew, mate, I anyone,

Andrew Law (02:30:00):
I’m also at a ComicCon in Brisbane this weekend, so if you’re going there and you need any questions asked about it, I’m quite happy to answer ’em.

Leigh Chalker (02:30:11):
There you go. Alright, so Oz ComicCon in Brisbane. Andrew will be there on Saturday and Sunday, so that’ll put you at what, the 12th and the 13th or the 13th, 14th this weekend. Something to that effect. It would be, yep. Something like that. Yeah, we’ll go with that. It’s Saturday and Sunday. It’ll be in someone’s past and it’s in the future now. And we’re talking about it in the present so you guys can work it out. Don’t leave it to us. Andrew will be in the right place and I’ll probably still be floating about wondering what happened in 1999.

Leigh Chalker (02:30:49):
Yeah, man, I’m not sure Andrew. I’ve been 25 years trying to work that out, mate.

Leigh Chalker (02:31:00):
Yeah, yeah. 14th and 15th. Thank you. Ciz, you’re a champion. Yeah, and Ciz will be floating around too, so go and check out and say good day to Andrew and Shane and all the people that are involved and go and buy some comic books. Andrew. Lord, thank you very much for joining the Chinwag family Mate, it’s been a pleasure. I’m so very happy that you are No man, it’s my pleasure to always chat man and particularly meet you as I have enjoyed your artwork of what I’ve seen of it and I’m very much looking forward to getting Slay He once it’s up and running, as I very gladly back that as well to just quality fantasy comic book man by a man who’s chasing his dreams. And that’s a beautiful thing because that’s what it’s all about. Alright, viewers, thank you very much for everyone that sent in comments.

(02:31:57)
Thank you so much for the regulars that are always here, encouraging Chinwag and Comex on all the shows. Thank you very much for the new viewers who have popped up and to say good day and support Andrew and see what he’s got to do and what he’s been creating and see what Chinwag is about. Just remember what we’ve spoken about here tonight. Comex is myself and Shane are very big on mental health. Look after your brothers and sisters. Just be kind like reach out to someone you haven’t heard from in a while. Like say good day, because you can make them smile. That might change their day. And in the flip that you may get a smile from that and it may change your day as well. So we’ll be back next week, next Tuesday. Thank you very much to Andrew. Thank you very much To everyone out there, community is unity, and Chinwag is and always will be made with love. See you later.

Voice Over (02:33:08):
This show is sponsored by the comics shop.

Andrew Law (02:33:11):
Check out. Come to comics shop to pick up a variety of Australian comics from multiple creators and publishers, all for one flat postage rate. We hope you enjoyed the show.