October Meet and Anthology details.

Howdy, folks!

Seems this beast has breath again, we had eight attendees this month!

We had Katie Ryan of Red Tails, Mike Perry of No Dice, Emma-Jean Stewart of Emmart, Lisa, Dick, Wen, myself and the return of Tom Bonin.

Amongst the usual discussion of comics, drawing styles, materials and what-not, the anthology idea I recently posted came up and we came to an agreement as to how it would go, thusly:

-The theme is Canberra, whether it be actual experiences of Canberra, a fictional Canberra, anything at all, so long as Canberra is there, after all, this is the Canberra meet up.

-No more than 5 pages long we figured was a good length, nothing too strenuous, if you're too busy or whatever.

-Deadline is next meet up, so November. A few folk thought that was too soon, so maybe we can make it a little bendy but a deadline is good to have to get stuff done, if you say "Whenever you wanna is fine." whenever never comes.

-Most important rule, as Mike says: HAVE FUN!

Get to it, folks! And see you next month!

Anthology...?

Hey, folks.

So months ago Tom and I were talking about things to do with the meet ups to make them more interesting/fun/what-have-you. One of the suggestions was to have a theme at each meet and we'd all have to draw something in that theme, we've since done this a couple of times and it worked well.

Another idea we had was once we got a few numbers at the meets, as we have had these past couple, to suggest maybe making an anthology containing work from all those that attend who wish to contribute. This is an idea I am quite keen on and was wondering who else was. Also, how to go about it, do we pick a theme and all do a piece, say, 3ish pages long, do something autobiographical, do we all pick our thing to work on or any other option, I'm open to suggestion.

Let me know your thoughts either here in the comments, via the Twitter or on the Facebook page.

Thanks!

-Rob

September Meet Up

Wow! What a turn out this month! We had nine attendees today.

At the Wig and Pen today were Lisa, Ed, Tedd, Impi, Mike (www.nodicecomic.com), Katie (www.puzzledkittyproductions.com), Emma (www.emm-art.com), Mal and Rob. Much talk of comics, movies, cartoons and the like, as well as drawings a-plenty.

This is the biggest meet up we've had since founder Ben Hutchings moved to Melbourne. After Ben left just over 12 months ago the meet up took a hard blow, we were lucky to get three people to show up most times. Tom, who now runs the FaceBook end of the meet, went to Impact Comics in the city and asked to put up a poster in the window (the banner above this blog) and if they'd take flyers advertising it, they said yes and slowly but surely we've regained numbers through the help of Impact, for which I can't thank Mal and the rest of the guys enough.

In addition to the monthly meet ups, a few regulars have also started a weekly "Pub Sketch" at the Pot Belly pub in Belconnen, every Monday evening, we generally show up about 7:30 and as always, anyone is welcome to turn up.

Also, you may have noticed that there are no pretty pictures with this post. Sorry, I didn't take any photos of any work. If you were there today and care to share anything you did, just email them to canberrameetups@gmail.com and either Tom or I will post them up here to showcase them.

Finally, if you are among those that showed up today, thank you for helping make this what it has become and will hopefully continue to be. It's wonderful to see the talent in this city and of course meet some really great and interesting people.

-Rob.

More Sketches

And here are some more drawings from past meetings.

August Meetup

It's been very quiet around here but that doesn't mean that things haven't been happening. I haven't made it to the last 3 meets but I understand that things have been going well and new people keep coming along.

Here's a sketch from Katie Ryan.

May Meet Up.

Well, what a wonderful turnout we had this month! We had regulars Sam, Tom and Rob as well as Jon, Alex, Alex and another guy I'm sorry to have forgotten the name of.

Lots of chatting about making comics, the world of comics, showing each other drawings and other works. However, because of all this chat, no drawing was actually done at the meet, so nothing to show off here this time around I'm afraid.

When first arriving at the Wig and Pen, we discovered it to be full of people and a band playing, but fortunately this ended not too long after we showed up and the place became less crowded allowing us to chat and look at drawings comfortably.

Things wrapped up around 5pm, so a good lengthy meeting. Hopefully things will carry on in this fashion at future meets. Gotten some interest from the Twitter which is wonderful and will hopefully bring in some more folk.

Before I end this I just wanted to mention if you have any queries about the meets do not hesitate to ask via the Facebook Group or the Twitter feed.

Also, one EXTRA last thing, next month, June, is Comikaze during Queen's Birthday weekend. I'm sure this will be discussed further at June's meet in a few weeks and maybe we can all do something in the same place for it.

That's it for now. See you next month!

April Meetup

Good turn out this month. I showed up late but arrived to find Sam, Rob, Emma and Keely (?) in full swing. Keely is an American and new to the meetup having found out about it from the poster at Impact. Advertising works! She showed us her little comic of one frame gags with beautiful pictures of prawns, jellyfish and other sea life, contemporary and prehistoric.

Sadly Emma and Keely had to leave so it was up to the guys to get some drawing done. After a lengthy discussion we came up with our theme: Predator. Here are mine and Sam's efforts. We did these in about half an hour.

When we'd finished we continued chatting til about 5:30 then decided to call it a day. Even though there were only 5 of us it was a better turn out than we've had since Ben left. With any luck it'll continue to grow and a good strong Canberra comic community will emerge.

See you next time!

Hmmmm.

On the Canberra Meetups Face Book group there are more than 30 members yet only 2 showed up this month. Our maximum since Ben Hutchings moved to Melbourne has been 3 and once I sat drinking beer by myself. What's going on? Do you not like beer? The Wig and Pen? or is it the regulars who put you off?

Anyway I went to impact to get myself a couple of comics. Not with anything clear in mind I left with a Clone Wars comic for my son and BPRD The universal Machine. Had a good chat with the guy behind the counter (whose name I should know but don't) and made my way up to The Wig. I was a bit early so I pulled out my sketch book and started this.

They opened, I ordered a pint of Red and continued. Rob showed up soon after and we lamented the lack of participation in what we think can only be a great thing. We chatted away about comics and drank beer and after an hour or so decided it was time to head home.

I have had an idea for what these meets should be be used for. Following on from Sam's 90min comic challenge of drawing a comic page inspired by the movie you're in the act of watching, I thought that we could be more productive at these meets do something similar whilst getting slightly pissed. I thought it would be good for attendees to write a word, put them all in a (proverbial) hat, draw one and use that as the theme for a drawing to be done during the meet which would then get posted up on this blog. Should we decide these drawings were good enough, had the money and motivation we could even publish a mini to be sold at the local comic store.

Anyway, for those who are interested the next meet's date falls on Easter Sunday so we will be moving it to the following Sunday: April 11th.

SEE YOU THERE!

It's on its way!

Well, the Canberra comic meets have had a shaky history and I'm not sure how far back they go but this last lot started a little under a year ago. With the untimely demise of House of Heroes, in Philip where the meets were held, there hadn't been a meet for a while but us comickers can't keep to ourselves all the time so it was off to The Wig and Pen. We started off well but then Ben Hutchings left us for the fair city of Melbourne and attendance dwindled (I'm not trying to put this all on you Ben ;P).

So now with this blog, a poster and some fliers we're hoping to get things kick started again and packed with comic creators, writers, illustrators, and fans.

I've called us The Canberra Comic Collective because, at the last meet, we discussed several possibilities for this blog.

Firstly a review of the meet will be posted with photos of the afternoon and pictures that were drawn on the day. Should we gain enough followers we may hold little illustration or writing competitions.

The Collective is young and we can go anywhere.