Saturday, December 19, 2015

Weekend Reading: My Father's Face and The Pencilsword


Above: My Father's Face by Jem Yoshioka.

If you happen to be kicking back and relaxing this weekend with a good book or tablet device, he's some new home-grown comics to enjoy! 

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of hosting a NZ comics panel at Chromacon in Auckland and got to interview the very talented Wellington cartoonist Jem Yoshioka. Her latest auto-biographic comic, My Father's Face, was inspired by her recent visit to Japan for the first time, as she continues to explore her Japanese heritage and themes relating to identity. Following on from her previous comic Folding Kimono, this is a thought provoking read and certainly has the potential to grow into a larger graphic novel project (which Jem has hinted at in her blog), so watch this space!

You can read the full comic of My Father's Face HERE and Jem's other comics at her website HERE.

Above: Panel from The Pencilsword #19: Twelve Days by Toby Morris.

Toby Morris wraps up another year of The Pencilsword with a sweet ode to the kiwi batch summer Christmas! You can read the full strip HERE.

- AK!

Friday, December 18, 2015

Classic Reissue: The Adventures of Hutu & Kawa

Above: The Adventures of Hutu & Kawa by Avis Acres.

Just in time for Christmas, Penguin Books NZ have reissued The Adventures of Hutu & Kawa, a classic picture book by one of our pioneering female cartoonists Avis Acres. Originally published by A.H. & A.W. Reed in 1955, this was the first in a series of picture books featuring the characters that had appeared in her 1950s comic strip, The Tale of Hutu & Kawa, published weekly in the New Zealand Herald. This was followed by two sequels, Hutu and Kawa meet Tuatara (1956) and Hutu and Kawa find an Island (1957).

In this adventure, Hutu and Kawa - also known as The Pohutukawa Babies - with some help from Grandpa Kiwi, build a canoe and set off up the river to explore the forest. On their way they make many new friends – and encounter the fearsome Bush Hawk.

This 60th-anniversary hardback edition captures all the charm of the original tale and brings these delightful characters to a new generation of children. Available now, this classic kiwiana read will make a great gift for the young or nostalgic at heart.

The Adventures of Hutu & Kawa by Avis Acres
RRP: $25.00NZ
ISBN: 9780143507055

- AK!

Friday, December 4, 2015

REVIEW: The Heading Dog Who Split in Half by Michael Brown & Mat Tait


Above: The cover for The Heading Dog Who Split in Half by Mat Tait.

It has been around 5 years in the making, having appeared in installments online and in various anthologies, but finally writer Michael Brown and artist Mat Tait's The Heading Dog Who Split in Half: Legends and Tall Tales from New Zealand is here!

As the title suggests, this is a collection of local folklore legends: accounts of extraordinary events that are believed to have happened, and tall tales: far-fetched and exaggerated yarns that are so well told and memorable that they have taken hold in the community imagination and been passed on in story or song.

Authors Mat Tait and Michael Brown first met at the Ilam School of Fine Arts at Christchurch University in the late 1980s. They stayed in touch, and after several years of researching and writing about New Zealand folklore, Brown approached Tait with the idea of adapting these tales into graphic form. Over the years Tait had quietly carved out a career as one of our most gifted comics illustrators. His artwork is an immaculate mix of razor-sharp line work and fluid inking. There’s an attention to detail that gives his work a haunting realism, combined with a cartoonist’s eye for composition and humour, that is perfect suited for this subject matter.

When it comes to tall tales you want to be drawn in and convinced that there’s a germ of truth in the telling, and that’s exactly what Brown and Tait have achieved here: these stories will entertain you, unnerve you, and haunt you – in the best possible way.


Above: A page from The Heading Dog Who Split in Half, artwork by Mat Tait.


There’s the title yarn, The Heading Dog Who Split in Half, a legend from the MacKenzie high country of Canterbury, about a heading dog that was so fast at mustering that one day it hit a half buried fencing standard at such speed that it was split in two. It’s owner puts the two halves back together and it speeds off and completes the job. Only once it returns does the owner see that it is grotesquely joined with one half the wrong way up! Captured in freakish detail by Tait's artwork, on paper it's a tale so vivid it leads you to wonder - what grain of truth could have given rise to this outlandish fantasy? 

And that's where the Additional Notes section at the back of the book comes in, providing the sources for the stories and comparisons to other well known legends from around the world. In this case, the Heading Dog comes from a rich vein of mythological carved dogs, that have appeared in Native American tales and similar animals like the reversible hare that appears in The Adventures of Baron Munchhassen. This added context greatly enhances the reading experience, inviting you to go deeper into each story if you wish to learn more about the origins if these fascinating yarns.

Above: A page from The Phantom Canoe, artwork by Mat Tait.

A book on local legends wouldn't be complete without a great ghost story, and this one contains a doozy in the form of The Phantom Canoe. It was sighted on Lake Tarawera in 1886, just a few weeks prior to the eruption of Mt Tarawera. A boat of tourists and local maori led by Te Paea Hinerangi (a well known local guide) who described the war canoe as been manned by warriors with the heads of dogs, and the illustration of them here is just chilling – a close encounter with spirits on the eve of apocalyptic destruction.


This story is significant as it is an example of a shared supernatural occurance witnessed by both Maori and Pakeha, suggesting that the spirit world of myth was not as far removed from their reality as the calonial settlers may have believed, and both cultures may still have something to fear from the mysterious and strange land of New Zealand.

Above: A page from A Tale of Old Waihiartwork by Mat Tait.

Other yarns are more humourous, like A Tale of Old Waihi, a bragging story told to out-of-towners featuring their gargantuan Crayfish – and its many uses. For example, you can use it’s eyes for bowling balls, claws for pick axes, add wheels to it’s tale for a baby pram and the shell can be used for an outside dunny(!). There's also an illustrated sea shanty in the form of Ranzo, Boys, Ranzo!, and the darkly gothic tragedy of Dunedin's Legend of Tunnel Beach.

Published by Potton & Burton in an oversized format on thick unprocessed paper, it's a real treat to turn the page an enjoy the large lavish artwork in inky black & white as always intended. Combining their considerable storytelling skills, Brown and Tait have produced a truly essential New Zealand graphic novel - that deserves a spot on every local bookshelf, where it will haunt and entertain readers of all ages for years to come.

You can also listen to my audio review of The Heading Dog Who Split in Half on Radio NZ Nights HERE. For more information you can also visit their website, Old Weird New Zealand HERE.

The Heading Dog Who Split in Half: Legends and Tall Tales from New Zealand
Michael Brown & Mat Tait
ISBN: 9781927213575
$39.99 NZ

- AK!