Join us online on Saturday 7 May for this fantastic – and totally free – national celebration of all things comics-related in New Zealand! Follow the livestream on the day on our YouTube channel, and register your interest in ComicFest at the link below and we’ll send you updates and reminders ahead of the day.
Register your interest in ComicFest
ComicFest this year features a whole galaxy of Aotearoa’s finest graphic artists and authors, and we’re so excited to share the programme with you! A big thank you to our all-important sponsors – National Library, Graphic comics, Gecko Press, Unity Books and Wellington Zinefest.
For more information on all the events at ComicFest, scroll further down the page for our complete programme, but expect panel discussions, presentations, workshops and loads of fun!
Full ComicFest 2022 Programme
Saturday 7 May
9 – 9:15am | Welcome to ComicFest 2022!
A welcome and overview of ComicFest, our exciting guests and options for streaming. We’re so excited to bring ComicFest 2022 to you! Meet your hosts and hear about what we have planned for the day.
9:15 – 10:15am | Meet Everybody’s Favourite Axolotl, Dewdrop — with Creator Kay O’Neill
Kids (and big kids) are welcome to join the Eisner and Harvey Award-winning illustrator and graphic novelist Kay O’Neill (author and illustrator of The Tea Dragon Society series) to help create friends old and new for their character, Dewdrop the Axolotl.
Suggested for: ages 4+
10:15 – 10:30am | Announcing the ComicFest drawing competition winners
Join us as we announce the winners of our ComicFest drawing competition!
Winners will be announced for the four age-based categories: 0–8, 9–12, 13–17 and 18+
10:30 – 11:30am | How to Draw Heroes — a Masterclass with Michel Mulipola
A how-to masterclass with Michel Mulipola who will show you he goes about drawing and creating heroes. Crack the code of superhero creation in this live workshop!
Michel Mulipola is a Samoan comic book artist who has two big passions in life — comics and wrestling — and who, when he gets the chance, likes to combine the two. His works often feature Pasifika wrestling heroes and recent historical heroes.
Michel will demonstrate the tools he uses to digitally create whilst drawing live (and live streaming) on the big screen! Bring pen and paper, and join in with Michel as he provides story-telling tips, panel composition ideas and illustration guidance.
Suggested for: ages 8+
11:45am – 12:45pm | Weekly Webcomics — Tips and Tricks with Jem Yoshioka
Join Jem Yoshioka, the talented webcomic artist behind Circuits and Veins and Folk Remedy as she takes you through the tools of the trade, and provides tricks and tips for getting your webcomic online.
12:50 – 1:20pm | Storytelling with Jonathan King
Jonathan King until very recently was best known as the acclaimed film director of films such as the hugely successful dark horror comedy Black Sheep and the remake of the NZ Children’s classic film Under the Mountain starring Sam Neill.
But that all changed when he released his first ever graphic novel in 2020 — The Inkberg Enigma. Aimed at children eight and up, it’s hugely enjoyable for adults too.
Come along and hear more from Jonathan about storytelling — from all his different creator perspectives.
1:30 – 2:30pm | New Voices, New Perspectives — a Panel Discussion
Featuring Mary Guo, Tara Black, Jem Yoshioka, and chaired by Sam Orchard
The world of graphic art is changing at an amazingly rapid pace — a veritable revolution has been happening in recent years. Developments have included: new definitions of what comprises a graphic work, new platforms with global reach for people to view your work and new high-tech tools to create your works.
This panel features some of the New Zealand artists at the vanguard of these changes, discussing the new opportunities for artists, the challenges inherent in these changes, and — finally — how artists go about taking full advantage of these new frontiers.
2:45 – 3:45pm | Giselle Clarkson — from commission to ComicFest artwork
Once you get a commission, how do you go about generating creative ideas that meet that brief? Indeed, how do you get a commission in the first place? And what do briefs usually entail?
All will be revealed in this event with the incredibly talented graphic illustrator Giselle Clarkson.
Giselle’s illustrative works include: The Gobbledegook Book: A Joy Cowley Anthology, Egg and Spoon: An Illustrated Cookbook, Secret World of Butterflies and Hazel and the Snails.
Suggested for: ages 8+
3:50 – 4:10pm | Dylan Horrocks — Comics in New Zealand and Memoir
Dylan Horrocks is a cartoonist best known for his graphic novel Hicksville and his scripts for the Batgirl comic book series. His works are published by the University of Auckland student magazine Craccum, Australia’s Fox Comics, the current affairs magazine New Zealand Listener from 1995 to 1997, the Canadian publishers Black Eye Comics and Drawn and Quarterly, and the American publishers Vertigo and Fantagraphics Books. He currently serialises new work online at Hicksville Comics.
Hear what Dylan has to say about comics in New Zealand and memoir.
4:15 – 4:45pm | Sarah Laing — Comics and Memoir
Sarah is a Wellington-based writer and illustrator who has had novels, short stories and the graphic memoir Mansfield and Me published. Her collection of comics from the past ten years, Let Me Be Frank, was published by VUP in late 2019. She also the co-editor of Three Words: An Anthology of Aotearoa/NZ Women’s Comics and has illustrated a number of children’s books.
Hear what Sarah has to say on comics and memoir.
4:45 – 5pm | ComicFest wrap-up and thank yous!
And that’s a wrap from us for 2022! Hear all our thank yous to our wonderful guests, and to you, our very excellent audience. We hope you enjoyed ComicFest 2022!
Jonathan King makes comics and films in Wellington, New Zealand. He wrote and directed comedy horror Black Sheep, co-wrote and directed an adaptation of Maurice Gee’s classic Under the Mountain, co-wrote supernatural thriller The Tattooist and directed sci-fi thriller Realiti.
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 
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.
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.