5 minutes with Mary Guo

ComicFest 2022 is Saturday 7 May — and this year will be fully online! Find the full programme on our ComicFest website. ComicFest is a joint venture between Wellington City Libraries and the National Library of New Zealand.

ComicFest 2022 website

Mary has been living in Wellington for seven years. She has been working in the game and animation industry for over a decade.  In her spare time, she works on various illustration and comic projects. Check out her personal art and comics at maryguo.com. Follow weekly updates on instagram: @totoroguo.

Website: maryguo.com
Instagram: @totoroguo

Q: What first got you interested in comics?

I was born in 1980’s China. There wasn’t much entertainment for kids back then, but there were comics, particularly Japanese manga. For me, the eighties and nineties were Japan’s comic golden age, and I was growing up reading Doraemon, Battle Angel Alita, Monster, and more.

Q: What is your average day like?

I work full-time for an animation company as a visual dev artist. Most days, I’m working from home, sometimes in the library or a coffee shop. During the evenings and weekends, I’m working on personal projects. In my leisure time, I like to attend all kinds of events, like shows, festivals, markets, galleries, etc.

Q: Can you tell us about a current or recent project you’ve worked on?

Currently, I’m working on two personal projects: Lonely Artist with co-creator TBun, and my Wellington Coffee Shop illustrations. Lonely Artist is a series of silent comic strips that we’ve just compiled into a book.

Q: Do you have any traditions or rituals that help you when you get to work?

I like to take walks for inspiration. I find that ideas naturally come to me while I’m alone, walking around the town belt and through the city.

Q: Who/what is your biggest influence or inspiration?

Many comic artists inspire me, too many to name! My biggest influence has always been Studio Ghibli. Nowadays, I also take inspiration from many other media, like video games, fine art, and animation.

Q: What or who are your favourite NZ comics or creators?

I enjoyed Ross Murray’s new book, Rufus Marigold. It was great! There are many incredible murals around Wellington by artists like T Wei and others. Michael McCormack, a painter with a studio in Island Bay, is probably my favourite local artist.

Q: What is your dream comic project?

I’m very excited to explore transmedia storytelling. I’m interested in how players take on the role of their characters in video games. I want to explore these ideas in my next project, a comic-video-game hybrid with a long-form narrative (working title: Concrete Jungle).

5 minutes with Sarah Laing

ComicFest 2022 is Saturday 7 May — and this year will be fully online! Find the full programme on our ComicFest website. ComicFest is a joint venture between Wellington City Libraries and the National Library of New Zealand.

ComicFest 2022 website

Sarah Laing is a fiction writer and cartoonist. Her first collection of short stories, Coming up Roses, was published in 2007, and followed her win of the 2006 Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition. She published the novel Dead People’s Music in 2009, followed by an illustrated novel The Fall of Light, published in 2013. She is a co-editor of Three Words: An Anthology of NZ/Aotearoa Women’s Comics, the author of Mansfield and Me: A Graphic Memoir and Let Me Be Frank, and has a regular comic strip in Woman Magazine.

Website: sarahelaing.com
Twitter: @SarahELaing
Instagram: @SarahELaing

Q: What first got you interested in comics?

I always really loved illustrated books. I remember being entranced by the swirling 1970s illustrations in Margaret Mahy’s The Lion in the Meadow and immersed in Robert McCloskey’s meticulously rendered world of One Morning in Maine. My step-grandmother had a 1960s book about kids who transformed a garden and I remember wanting to swim in that pthalo green and wear a little white wool mini-coat whilst planting tulip bulbs. My dad grew up in the baby boomer generation where they sold weekly war comics down at the local dairy, and he made sure we were well stocked with Tintin, Asterix, Garfield and Charlie Brown. I remember the Far Side book arriving at our house in the mid-eighties, to be read until the spine split, and later, a visiting American scientist gifted us a few Calvin and Hobbes collections. I discovered Julie Doucet, Alison Bechdel and Tank Girl in the 90s, but it wasn’t until the 2000s that I really began seriously seeking out comics and thinking that it was something that I’d like to write.

Q: What is your average day like?

I have a 3-day-a-week job as a graphic designer for the government, and I often use my cartooning and illustration skills there. The other two days of the week I am either working on my Woman cartoon strip, due every second Thursday, or else I am drawing comics for a backyard bird rescue book I am working on with my friend, Jo Emeney.

Q: Can you tell us about a current or recent project you’ve worked on?

My most recent book was a collection of comics made during lockdown, The Covid-19 Diaries, and before that I selected comics from my blog for a collection called Let Me Be Frank. Although my regular Woman comic treads familiar ground, this time I have invented an alter-ego, Nomi, who is somewhat like me but has permission to have entirely invented adventures. I have recently switched from drawing on paper to using Procreate on my iPad. This makes things faster and the colours brighter, but I do worry that I am losing something – that raw, messy, spontaneous quality – by working digitally.

Q: Do you have any traditions or rituals that help you when you get to work?

At the moment I am very time-poor so my method is to wait until I am as close to the deadline as humanly possible and then blitz the comic with a little adrenalin. I do semi-regularly generate new comics in a notebook, although I am always losing notebooks, and half-formed ideas. I hope the ones that I remember are the ones that actually have potential. I also find myself making a lot of coffee and toast with peanut butter. I also really like Everything butter by Fix and Fogg.

Q: What is your dream comic project?

At the moment, because I am so deadline driven, and also working digitally, my dream comic project is to use watercolours and to be subconsciously and aesthetically driven. I’d like to live in a cottage by the sea, take long blustery walks, come back to my light-filled studio and then paint until a narrative emerges. I think I need some Scandy linen frocks, a wood burner and a bunch of wild flowers for this particular fantasy too. And a day bed for reading and naps.

Q: What are you excited to share with ComicFest attendees? Just a taster!

I’m excited to see the incredible line-up of panellists! I guess my idea about comics is that you need to keep your eyes and ears open, as there are stories everywhere. Also, don’t worry too much about whether you are the world’s best drawer. Just as long as people get your meaning, it doesn’t matter. Your own style is unique. Lots of practice – that’s a good idea. If you look at the early days of my blog in 2010, and then now, you will see that I got better at drawing. I wouldn’t say practice makes perfect, but it does make you more fluent and better at perspective.

Sam Orchard talks about his practice

ComicFest 2022 is Saturday 7 May — and this year will be fully online! Find the full programme on our ComicFest website. ComicFest is a joint venture between Wellington City Libraries and the National Library of New Zealand.

ComicFest 2022 website

Sam Orchard is the Assistant Curator for the Cartoons and Comics archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library and one of the co-curators for ComicFest. Sam writes comics, and creates art that celebrates difference. His ongoing web comic ‘Rooster Tails’ has been running for over 10 years. Written from his life as a queer transgender man, the comic explores themes of mental health, fat embodiment, nerd culture and trans lives.

Sam is also the author of ‘Family Portraits’, a series of short comic stories that amplify the stories of intersectional identities within Aotearoa’s rainbow communities. Sam’s comics and resources about sexuality, sex and gender have been used internationally by SOGI advocates. Sam is currently working on his first full-length graphic novel.

Website: thesamorchard.com
Twitter: @sam_orchard
Instagram: @roostertails

We last year had the pleasure of interviewing Sam  in conjunction with Caffeine and Aspirin arts and entertainment review show on Radioactive FM. The interview was conducted by Caffeine and Aspirin host Liam Wild.

And below is the podcast of that interview for your enjoyment:

5 minutes with Michel Mulipola

ComicFest 2022 is Saturday 7 May — and this year will be fully online! Find the full programme on our ComicFest website. ComicFest is a joint venture between Wellington City Libraries and the National Library of New Zealand.

ComicFest 2022 website

Michel Mulipola is a comic book illustrator and professional wrestler. Auckland-based Mulipola is a self-taught award-winning artist who has produced illustrations for Learning Media, Lift Education, Reading Warrior and independent US graphic novel series Headlocked. In 2006 he won the Gibson Award for Best New Zealand Comic Book Artist, in 2013 he was a grand finalist in the Secret Walls x Aotearoa Live Art Battles, and in 2016 he was awarded the Storylines Notable Book Award for Samoan Heroes with author David Riley. An advocate for comic drawing and creative expression, Mulipola is keen to inspire young talent through regularly visiting schools and running workshops. In 2020 Mulipola published O Le Aiga Samoa with Nafanuatele Lafitaga Mafaufau, the first-ever Samoan language comic book.

Website: bloodysamoan.com
Twitter: @bloodysamoan
Instagram: @bloodysamoanart

Q: What first got you interested in comics?

I fell in love with comics as small kid after finding my uncle’s stash. I became enamoured with the comics medium right from the first page.

Q: What is your average day like?

My days are always hectic with a mix of illustrating, business stuff, video games, school visits, community events, pro wrestling, Zoom meetings et al. Every day is a mixed bag because I don’t really keep a daily schedule, I play it by ear.

Q: Can you tell us about a current or recent project you’ve worked on?

I recently finished an autobiographical comic that will be released as a School Journal by Lift Education. It will only be available in the Sāmoan and Tongan languages as resource for bilingual units in schools around Aotearoa. And I can’t say too much about it yet, but I am working with a very big video game company in developing a new game for one of their franchises.

Q: Do you have any traditions or rituals that help you when you get to work?

I don’t have any rituals or traditions when I work. It’s literally eat, sleep (or lack thereof), draw, repeat.

Q: Who/what is your biggest influence or inspiration?

The comics medium itself has been my biggest inspiration though as a kid, I was heavily influenced by the late 80s/early 90s X-Men stuff from Marc Silvestri and Jim Lee.

Q: What or who are your favourite NZ comics or creators?

It’s odd to think that some of my favourite NZ comics creators are also good friends of mine. I always enjoy work by Roger Langridge, Dylan Horrocks, Toby Morris, Ant Sang, Ben Stenbeck, Rachel Smythe and more. There is an abundance of amazing comic talent in Aotearoa and I am excited to see what will be created by future artists.

Q: What is your dream comic project?

As a kid who loved (and as an adult who still LOVES) superheroes, an opportunity to illustrate a comic story for Marvel or DC Comics is always on the bucket list. I’ve had amazing opportunities to draw some of my favourite pro wrestlers for the WWE Comics by BOOM! Studios. The closest I’ve gotten to thet Marvel dream is illustrating over 300 sketch cards for Upper Deck’s various Marvel trading card lines.

Q: What are you excited to share with ComicFest attendees? Just a taster!

I don’t have too much to share at the moment. With how untethered my day-to-day schedule is, I would not be surprised if something big comes along before ComicFest that I could possibly share with the audience.

5 minutes with Sam Orchard

ComicFest 2021 website

Sam Orchard is the newly appointed Assistant Curator for the Cartoons and Comics archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library and one of the co-curators for ComicFest. Sam writes comics, and creates art that celebrates difference. His ongoing web comic ‘Rooster Tails’ has been running for over 10 years. Written from his life as a queer transgender man, the comic explores themes of mental health, fat embodiment, nerd culture and trans lives.

Sam is also the author of ‘Family Portraits’, a series of short comic stories that amplify the stories of intersectional identities within Aotearoa’s rainbow communities. Sam’s comics and resources about sexuality, sex and gender have been used internationally by SOGI advocates. Sam is currently working on his first full-length graphic novel.

Website: thesamorchard.com
Twitter: @sam_orchard
Instagram: @roostertails

Q: What first got you interested in comics?

I’ve always found comics to be a really helpful way of getting my feelings out. Sometimes I’m not so good at realising what’s going on, so I’ll sit with a piece of paper and pen and drawing helps me realise what I’m feeling, how to express myself, and usually helps me feel better too. It’s basically self-care.

Q: What is your average day like?

I’ve just started as the Assistant Curator of the Cartoons and Comics Archive, and I love it. I’m learning all about the amazing collection that we have here, and looking forward to adding to it over the coming years.

Q: Can you tell us about a current or recent project you’ve worked on?

I’m currently working on my first full-length graphic novel. It’s an adaptation of a Young Adult novel; a coming-of-age punk rock trans comic. It’s loud and proud, and exciting, and I’m thrilled to be working on it.

Q: Do you have any traditions or rituals that help you when you get to work?

My favourite way to warm up is to hop on twitter and ask people for suggestions of what to draw – then spend 30 seconds on each of the weird suggestions I get thrown my way.

Q: What is your dream comic project?

I have a few ideas in the works, but I’m trying to finish my current project before I jump ahead of myself!

Q: What are you excited to share with ComicFest attendees? Just a taster!

I’m really proud and excited about being part of the organising committee for ComicFest. There’s an incredible line up of comic creators, talks and interactive events. I really believe that there’s something for just about everyone – whether you’re a comic lover, a comic creator, or new to comics entirely.

Q: If you were to enter our cosplay contest, who/what would you dress up as?

I’d like to think that older Steven Universe would be my go to, but sadly I don’t have enough hair for that.

5 minutes with Jem Yoshioka

ComicFest 2022 is Saturday 7 May — and this year will be fully online! Find the full programme on our ComicFest website. ComicFest is a joint venture between Wellington City Libraries and the National Library of New Zealand.

ComicFest 2022 website

Jem Yoshioka is an illustrator and comic artist living in Wellington, New Zealand. Deftly weaving words and pictures together, Jem’s comics tell evocative and emotional stories with themes of belonging, place, and heritage.

Her current webcomic, Folk Remedy, is a queer fantasy inspired by Taisho era Japan, folktales and monsters called Yokai. Jem’s previous webcomic a sci-fi romance called  Circuits and Veins, was completed in 2020, reaching 92,000 subscribers and still attracts tens of thousands of readers a month.

Jem’s work has been published in a range of local and international anthologies, including the 2020 publication Lockdown: tales from Aotearoa, published by Christchurch Art Gallery. She won first place in the Chromacon New Zealand Indie Arts Festival Comic Awards in 2013 and 2015 and was shortlisted in 2017.

Website: jemshed.com
Twitter: @jemyoshioka
Instagram: @jemyoshioka
Facebook: @jem.yoshioka.art

Q: What first got you interested in comics?

I have always loved to tell stories and draw pictures, so in a way I feel like I was always on the path to comics. I read a lot as a kid and loved picture books fiercely.

Q: What is your average day like?

I work full time, so I do that, then come home and make comics. I’ve been cooking a lot of hotpot, so that’s been a nice thing to have on hand. Lately I’ve also been playing a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, which is great because it forces me to socialise. Comics can be quite isolating!

Q: Can you tell us about a current or recent project you’ve worked on?

Last year I finished my long-running webcomic, Circuits and Veins, and this year I’ve started Folk Remedy, which is set in a fantasy Japan during the 1920s and references a lot of Japanese folklore. I’ve been publishing it since April and I’m really proud of it so far.

Q: Do you have any traditions or rituals that help you when you get to work?

I always have a spare doodle canvas open, so that if I’m struck by other ideas while I’m working on my comic I can draw them down. Usually nothing much comes of it, but it’s nice to have that little no-pressure space alongside my regular comics space.

Q: Who/what is your biggest influence or inspiration?

Last time I said my grandmother, Taeko. And that’s still true! But at the moment I’m really inspired and influenced by Japanese folklore and history, especially while working on Folk Remedy. I’m especially passionate about the stories of yokai, and their role of both shaping and reflecting Japan as a nation have been influential for hundreds of years, They were at risk of being lost during the Meiji restoration but a series of dedicated scholars across generations are keeping the stories, characters, and traditions alive for us and future generations. I love that these stories aren’t static, but adjust to what’s needed, and even new yokai are born all the time!

Q: What or who are your favourite NZ comics or creators?

Of course Rachel Smythe, my closest friend. But I also love the work of Kay O’Neil, Alex Cara, Tara Black, Michel Mulipola, and so many others I’m forgetting.

Q: What is your dream comic project?

I’m working on them! The thing with comics is you really have to love them to make them, they take so much work. I love working on projects connected to my heritage that get to reach heaps of people. Telling stories about Japanese diaspora, or fiction but from a Japanese diaspora lens is a huge passion of mine, and one that has been present in all my recent work. It’s the most rewarding thing, to have someone else who has struggled with their heritage tell me that my sharing of my journey has helped them with theirs. I hope that through my work I can continue to do this, to share these feelings.