Roddy’s Film Companion

Sorry about the lack of posts for the last two weeks. Due to traveling between America and England, coupled with Christmas and New Years, it has been hard to keep up with posting. Given the time of year, however, I would think most of you have better things to do than read web-comics. Irrespective of all this – Roddy is back!! I have posted the latest page of “Prologue to Europe! Europe!” today to get the ball rolling, and from now on (until you hear otherwise) two new pages will be going up every week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays (NZ time). The “Prologue to Europe! Europe!” will finish on the 12 of February and after that I will let you know what is happening with the next on-line issue.

Till then – happy reading and a happy new year to you all!

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Sorry about last week – we’ve been so busy here that neither Roddy’s FIlm Companion or my partner’s Solar blog has been updated. But I am pleased to say that we’ve scheduled 5 weeks worth so expect a new page of Cleopatra every Monday, Wednesday and Friday again.

In other recent Roddy’s Film Companion happenings a brand spankin’ new story has been appearing weekly in the Victoria University student magazine Salient. It is a story set just after Roddy’s Film Companion Issue 1: Prologue to Europe! Europe! (which can be read here) and is about John teaching Roddy to use the darkroom. We might start posting this after Issue 2: Cleopatra (which you can start reading here) is finished.

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Sorry about the week long absence. I actually thought I had already uploaded last weeks images, but obviously I was mistaken. So here they are, in all their glory. We are now nearing the end of Cleopatra, which means that it will be time to start a new story soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Also, in other news there was a short 2 page Roddy story included in the Wellington comics anthology called Bristle, edited by Brent Willis. This great collection also includes Draw, Dick Whyte, Carlos Wedde, Brent Willis, Claire Harris and GCR (among others). It also has a spiffy colour cover by NZ comics legend Tim Bollinger. It only costs NZ$5.00 so if you want to get a copy email Brent Willis at celfbw[at]xtra[dot]co[dot]nz. Alternatively, if you’re in New Zealand you can try your local comic book shop. Happy reading!

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So my partner and I went back to work and school and everything got really busy so we didn’t have time to update anything recently, which must have been annoying considering how close this issue is to finishing. The next three pages are lined up for Wednesday and Friday (of this week) and Monday (of next week) and that is the end of the Cleopatra issue of Roddy’s Film Companion. Horay!!

The next issue, called “The Burtons” (in the way one might say “The Simpsons,” but not in the way you might say “The Nazis” – however, it is set in Switzerland for anyone that cares) will start next week on Wednesday. It is about Roddy and John visiting Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor at their flash new house in Gstaad. Hilarity ensues when Richard acts like an ass (again), John is Catholic and feels guilty about everything, Elizabeth is both drunk and rude, and Roddy is still gay (nuts to you non-believers)! As Dylan Horrocks once said, “They’re such awful people,” so what’s not to like!

This one was originally published in paper form way back in 2008 for the Tripple Threat exhibition featuring Draw and Claire Harris, and the New Zealand Comics Weekend but I can never be bothered keeping them in print so thankfully the internets can pick up the slack (I heart you, internets). It’s about sixty pages so it should keep you busy for the next half a year (or there abouts). After that I might put up a range of short strips that have appeared in other places.

In other news the new issue of Bristle is out with a beautiful cover by Claire Harris (above left). I was too busy to anything for it this time, but its full of great comics from Solar, Draw, Ari Freeman, Brent Willis and Lorenzo Van Der Lingen (among others). It costs $NZ 5.00 and can be ordered from Brent Willis at celfbw[at]xtra[dot]co[dot]nz. Or you can just send your address and $5 to Brent Willis, PO Box 27-258, Wellington, New Zealand (if you live in NZ you could even try your local comic book store).

That’s it from me – I hope you enjoy the last few pages of Cleopatra. Peace out!

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For the past year a chapter of Roddy’s Film Companion (titled ‘The Darkroom’ and set sometime just after Europe! Europe! Prologue) has been appearing in weekly installments in Salient (the Victoria University student magazine). Much to my surprise ‘The Darkroom’ has recently been nominated for an ASPA award for Best Comic (ASPA is the Aotearoa Student Press Association). Many thanks to Jackson Wood (the editor of Salient) for nominating my comic. The association has held an annual awards ceremony since 2002 recognising the best in New Zealand’s student media. Although they do not have a website, they are listed on Wikipedia. I’ll let you know how it pans out after the award ceremony on the 12th of September. Wish me luck.

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Sorry everyone, but due to work on the Wayfarer Gallery website (which hosts this blog) Roddy’s Film Companion has been absent for two weeks. I realise this is really annoying for anyone following the blog, but things have been crazy at the moment with work and websites. I absolutely promise we will return to a regular schedule from now on (three pages a week). We have not been good at keeping these promises in the past, but I assure you, this time we mean it buddy!

In other news The Darkroom, a Roddy’s Film Companion backstory that has been appearing in Salient (the Victoria University student magaizine in Wellington), was awarded Best Comic at the Aotearoa Student Press Association awards (APSA). This was very exciting. Many thanks to Jackson Wood for nominating us. Also, the Wayfarer Gallery has recently undergone an overhaul. It has a new frontpage and a brand new journal, called the Haiku News (this is one of the reasons both Roddy’s Film Companion and Solarts have been slack in terms of uploading the last couple of weeks). Haiku News is a journal publishing news articles transformed into haiku poetry. Check it out!

Happy reading!!

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September was an exciting month at the Wayfarer Gallery. We have recently overhauled the frontpage and it now looks like something from Geocities, circa 1996. We are actually really pleased with the new design and very happy to have so many new projects underway.

What started as a few scattered posts on S.O.L.A.R. has developed into its own website called “Haiku News” (run by Dick Whyte and Laurence Stacey). Haiku News is an e-journal dedicated to publishing quality haiku, tanka and senryu poetry from around the world reflecting on news articles and contemporary events. We publish 1 new poem every day, with links to the news article that inspired it. In our first month on-line we had amazing submissions from Denis Garrison, Ed Baker, Janet Lynn Davis, Vasile Moldovan, Mike Montreuil, Terry O’Connor, Liam Wilkinson and Paul Smith. Still to come this month are submissions from Joshua Sellers, Barbara A. Taylor, Michelle V. Alkerton, Chen-ou Liu and more from Denis Garrison, Janet Lynn Davis and Paul Smith (as well as more from Dick and Laurence, of course). Special thanks to Paul Smith for his dedication to writing amazing poems for the journal. Check it out here.

Because S.O.L.A.R. (the Science Of Linguistic Aesthetic Research) has been busy working on the development of Haiku News, the S.O.L.A.R. website has been relatively quiet. We have begun posting a series of “protopoems” (alphabetical lists) which are the sketches for a new journal called “Protophilosophy” (which will be unleashed in November, everything going according to plan). Sometime this month Solar will resume posting image-based research and new haiku poetry. The S.O.L.A.R. site is also due for a design overhaul which we hope to complete sometime in November as well. Last month Dick Whyte also gave lectures on “Difference in Art” and “Time in Art” to Massey University’s third-year critical studies classes (Wellington, New Zealand).

In other news Roddy’s Film Companion, a comic biography of Roddy McDowall (the film actor who played Cornelius in the original Planet of the Apes) is back full force producing 3 new pages a week of a graphic novel detailing the relationship between Roddy McDowall and his partner John. The third issue has just started going on-line and includes guest stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Check it out here. Robyn E. Kenealy, writer and illustrator of Roddy’s Film Companion, was also awarded “Best Comic” at the Aotearoa Student Press Association awards (APSA) last month for The Darkroom (an RFC backstory published weekly in Salient, the Victoria University student magaizine). Congratulations Robyn!

Finally, The Wayfarer Gallery is also pleased to announce that we will soon be hosting the Tao Wells archive. See a sneak preview here. Till next month, salome!

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It would trite to apologise for the lack of updates, wouldn’t it? All my legions of fans (I have millions, of course) are probably out there right now going “hey, where’s my Roddy!” and you’re thinking I’m just like all those other shitty no-update webcomics that are all like, I’m sorry, it will be different from now on and then it isn’t. Well, I’m not you’re right. The real truth of the situation is that someone else (actually, my loving husband) used to manage my updates for me and now he is way, way too busy and it’s my responsibility and I haven’t quite figured out how to do it. I have the comics, I promise. I’m up to, like, page four hundred or some shit. It’s just this stuff with the machines.  So I apologize. And I ask you to bear with me, until such time as I am able to put comics on the internets with ease and aplomb.

In the mean time, wow, UK election! Draaaamaaa!! Did you all see Gordon Brown just, like, resign? That was quite good of him, I thought. Clegg did say he was never going to coalition with Labour if Brown was in charge. I Have a friend who says – bearing in mind that Labour have been the brains behind a lot of creepy Big Brother measures that are bad and scary, plus Blair was all about fucking Bush* - that choosing between the Tories and lab. is like choosing between eating shit and drinking piss. Both awful, but one is a tiny bit better. The analogy is crude, but I’ve never had a huge problem with crude, and being on the redder-than-Fidel-Castro-with-diaper-rash end of the political spectrum, I tend to make insinuations like that about most mainstream governments anyway. I do agree with my friend’s shit and piss analogy, is what I’m trying to say. That would be the bullet point to take away from the previous sentences.

But democracy is not about Robyn, and John Pilger’s account of the Thatcher years indicates that tiny difference between those parties can be somewhat crucial (like it is here.) So I’m on tenterhooks. I haven’t read the Guardian website this much since I discovered the bite-sized makes-me-feel-like-the-world-ain’t-overwhelming Guardian Weekly. It’s almost distracting me from how angry I am about Arizona.

I’m quite angry about Arizona.**

Comics soon.

*”Fucking” used as intensifier, not… well, not verb.

** Other people justifiably a lot more angry.

I finally learned how to do it! I finally did! It isn’t even that hard! In fact, it is fucking easy! I know how to put comics on the webs!!!1 Using an FTP SERVER!!! (Seriously, though, ftp has come a long way since I was a girl making websites on “xoom.com”. It never used to have all these user friendly buttons.) I am also DOING IT MYSELF. WOOT.

Long story short, expect updates, mo’ fo’s. Thrice weekly.

Look, I just keep forgetting to take my folio to work, so I can scan some stuff on my break. Also, there’s a lot of hate out there for webcomics that don’t update properly so part of me wants to be cantankerous and avoidy just because I can. Let me get get record straight here, y’all: there is no way I will ever make a living from art. This allows me to rule my own webcomics fifedom in the manner I see fit.

But here’s some stuff to tide you over:

1: You should totes go and download issue 4 of Radio as Paper if you haven’t already. I have an article in it – it’s part one of my American Triptych, even. Before I wrote about 2012 and BSG and the end of American Days, I wrote about Bruce Springsteen, and the case for judicious nationalism. Here is the first paragraph:

If I had to pick one song to explain to you what Bruce
Springsteen was all about, I’d pick ‘Reason to Believe’. It’s
the last song on Nebraska, the four-track acoustic album
that I usually use to make a convert out of a critic. Patriotic
pop trash, is he? (this is how the argument always goes.) Not
on this fucking album, bub. On this album, he is Woody
Guthrie. Yes, Woody Guthrie. Okay, so maybe every song
isn’t written in ‘D’, but this land is for surely his fucking
land. Listen to the damn album! (I get quite forceful here,
because I’m usually drunk by the time I put the record on
the turntable, hence my judicious use of the word “fucking”.)
Listen to this, motherfucker! And learn!

2. God fucking damn I miss geology. This is what the class of 2007 made for their end of year thingie. It is HILARIOUS, and for me, bitter sweet.

Note: Michael Hannah is a professor at VUW.