Liz Argall

Thanks to all the artists who sent me info. I’ll be maintaining a list of people to contact should further opportunities arise.

Comicbook Opera is 99.9% complete, that .1% keeps dancing around and poking its tongue out at me, but I think we’re in fine shape for the premiere in January. The collaboration process has and continues to be a fascinating process and it’s given me new perspectives on how I work and what my fears are. This collaboration has been quite different to my previous collaborations and is more like a sculpture.

I keep chipping away to reveal more underneath, I feel more like an archeologist… an archaologist who has written 9 drafts so far and wants to keep chipping away. I now understand how some playwrites have been notorious for pathologically writing, rewriting and tweaking their plays… there is something about the theatrical process that brings out that urge in me and I may have to be careful lest I drive my co-collaborators insane!

I interrupt this sporadically updated website to put out the call for talented artists (of a very particular style).

I’m talent scouting for Inception Strategies, looking for Pencillers and Colourists for educational comics. Style must be DC/Marvel realistic, tight clean pencils that can go straight from pencils to colour. Must be able to commit to doing 24 pages (over a reasonable period), IS has a good track record of paying on time. Colour needs to be high intensity with lots of detail. Must be able to work from photographic references and depict people from diverse backgrounds.

Please pass on to anyone who might be interested. If you are shortlisted we would like you to be available to do test pages in late October/early November.

Submission info:
Please do not attach samples of artwork, send relevant url that shows your mighty awesomeness, as a general note please don’t make your website so wanky I do not know which links to click or have to click through outdated stuff you did in primary school before I get to the good stuff.

Please indicate in the subject line if you are a penciller, colourist or both. Possibility of ongoing work for the right person. Final decision on who gets gigs will not be made by me and depending on the number of submissions I may be slow to respond. Follow up e-mails to see how things are going are fine as long as you do not hound me.

e-mail liz@lizargall.com

Cheers

Liz

Tonight the Griffyn Ensemble will perform at the National Gallery of Australia – a newly composed program inspired by our closest neighbours, including Papua New Guinea, West Papua and Indonesia. (6.30pm start if you want to go). Part of their work will be an original composition by Michael Solis, the composer I’m working with to create Comicbook Opera. I wish I knew more musical technical terms to describe what he’s doing better.

Anyway I’m particularly (and selfishly) excited because I helped Michael find the right lyrics for the song at the end of the piece. There’s all sorts of exploration through the work and it now finishes in a song that is a fusion of Papua New Guinea Pidgeon and English. It was lots of fun to work on the song, push words about, probe and shape meaning and intent and learn more about PNG language, culture and taboos. Michael has spent time in PNG and it was interesting to see past the dry definitions into some of the cultural aspects of PNG language(“no we can use that word it’s really bad” “but we’re talking about bad things” “Yes but even saying that word is bad”).

It will be fun to see the words live, Michael’s put a lot of work into this piece.

Yesterday I got an unexpected phone call from Helen Fry editor of The Write Stuff, out of the Northern Rivers Writer’s Centre. Helen had been searching the internet, investigating comics and liked my website, and could I do an interview on the creative process! I was of course delighted and we had a lovely chat. There is so much to comics that of course we only scraped the tip of the iceberg, but it was wonderful to share the love. Unless strange things happen there should be an article in The Write Stuff sometime this year (sadly they do not have an electronic version so I won’t be able to link to it).

So thank you Helen, you made my day.

It’s really nice to get that kind of feedback about the website as well. I of course see all the things I could do to make it better, but it was welcoming and informative to someone wanting to know about Australian comics, so that’s a good start. If anyone has any suggestions about what works for them and what doesn’t or what they’d like to see blogged about please drop me a line.

Now onwards to Conflux and back to working on Comicbook Opera.