The first syndicated Arctic Circle strip

I had no idea then that it wasn’t ready.

I picked up a few papers for launch and a few papers more in the following year, but felt like I was bumping along below the radar. Still, I was getting to know the characters and learning how to draw better.

The Arctic Circle strip published one year after launch - drawn a little better and the environmental theme is coming through

So it was a bit of a shock when RC Harvey reviewed Arctic Circle about a year after launch and wrote

Although the clothes-pin penguins in their black tuxes are easy enough on the eyes, the stark simplicity of Hallatt’s style puts the strip’s visuals in the Dilbert school of non-art. Cartoonists who draw in this way doubtless believe they are producing highly stylized contemporary Art. And, of course, they are — the contemporary design of wallpaper, repeated over and over in an endless pattern. Still, penguins are penguins and forever cute. Hallatt’s comedy, however, is neither cute nor very funny. My way of assessing the comedy in a comic strip is to tally the number of strips over, say, three weeks in which the punchline is telegraphed by the setup panels…too many of the [strips] achieve their humor in this way, and because we are almost never surprised, the comedy is only ordinary.

I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. It wasn’t that I disagreed, it was that I thought he was right. My syndicate had been wrong, the people who had sent me nice emails and letters had been wrong and RC Harvey was completely, 100% right. I talked to Brendan and he dismissed the rant as being just that, but I was devastated and suffered one of my biggest crises of confidence in my ability as a cartoonist.

I continued to write and draw (those deadlines don’t go away) and the angst mellowed into determination. Determination to work on my areas of weakness. The wallpaper patterns of repeating penguins were to be avoided with more interesting panels. My drawing was gradually improving in any case, but now I gave more thought to how I composed the scenes (something I still do, though nasty deadlines tend to cause more Garfield-type bar set ups…). I did more continuing storylines to provide interest and take away the obvious punchlines.

I tried to vary some of the viewpoints

This was from a series about a tree growing in the warming Arctic

The Arctic Circle cartoon published on its second year anniversary

The strip developed. I’d say it has been in development for 3 years and I’m only ever happy with my most recent work.

I hope this means I’m getting better – I’d like to be doing this for another three years at least.

The 3rd anniversary comic strip for Arctic Circle

I was given space (in a former jewelry store, hence the wonderful jewelry cases) in the largest and busiest mall in Mississippi.  This is where the exhibit will be through August.  In September, the show goes on the road to Disney Toonfest in Marceline, Missouri, then on to Omaha, Nebraska at the Bemis Center.

One Fine Sunday Exhibition

Wish I could zoom in!

It's hard to think about getting old

I was recently floored by a question that I have never had from a client in 11 years of full time cartooning:

Do you have a superannuation fund (Australian pension)…?

and even more surprisingly:

…because we would like to pay into it.

I replied that cartoonists don’t retire – we keep working until we die at the drawing board. The client persisted:

Would you like to consider setting up a [superannuation] account…? It might not add up to an awful lot, but it’s an amount you are entitled to. Hopefully you’ll be with us for a while and we can keep contributing to it.

(I really love this client). So that made me think… and search on the internet…and find that it might really work out to have a superannuation account as I could claim it back against my tax, or have the government pay into my pension (getting money from the government is always a persuasive prospect).

A search online showed only one superannuation company that was really worth considering: Australian Ethical. They invest in truly environmentally sustainable companies that care about people as well as profits. Coincidentally, one of their (recycled paper) leaflets showed up in the ACF’s Habitat magazine. And they were launching a new fund called the Climate Advocacy Fund, a joint venture between Australian Ethical and the Climate Institute. I went to a presentation by one of their directors, James Thier, last night. It’s a weird new thing. They aim to effect change by investing in the Australian Stock Exchange (including companies they wouldn’t previously have touched with a barge pole) and then tabling resolutions with some of those companies to try and get some of the most carbon-intensive ones to change their game. From the AE web site, the aim and objective of the Climate Advocacy Fund is to:

• Provide returns consistent with the broad Australian share market index and provide an avenue for active engagement with the companies included in the index.
• … track the return of the S&P/ASX 200 share market index
• … improve the corporate behaviour of companies through engagement on climate change issues.

I like the idea that this company,  having invested in ethical, sustainable companies for 20+ years is now prepared to try another tack – to take on some of the companies who would make a bigger difference to our future, if they would only change the way they operate.

I’m going to get myself a pension plan.

The Tim Burton Exhibition at the ACMI

I never really thought of Tim Burton, the film director, as a cartoonist, but the guy definitely shows the symptoms in his ACMI exhibition. Masses of drawings, a vivid imagination and the desire to tell a story, even in just one panel. You couldn’t take photos, so I had fun trying to sketch some of what I saw.

This started as a sketch on a doodle pad and then became one of his more effective acrylic paintings

There were a lot of fantastic creatures

NB. The exhibition was packed. Even first thing on a Wednesday, a couple of weeks after the exhibition had opened. Despite a $19 entrance fee. This would be unheard of for a cartoonist’s exhibition. Just goes to show that moving pictures are the way to go…

One of Lemon's recent Rabbits Against Magic strips

He works down in his basement, which is a real treasure trove

Where Lemon works when he isn't in the library

I also owe him an original strip (though sorry, mate – I ain’t water-colouring mine!)…

detail of the building

Hanging out with two of my childhood icons

In the atrium of the museum

When you get closer you see the tiles are individual Peanuts strips

A superior alternative to papering the bathroom with the comics pages

The highlight was meeting fellow cartoonist, Justin Thompson, and getting the real tour, behind the scenes at the Peanuts studios.

With Justin outside the studios where Schulz used to work

Justin's drawing board

I think he needs a bigger office

This room would have blown my ten year old mind

Fantastic! You couldn't get away with this in the newspapers

The cartoonist nerd in me also enjoys her blog posts about the cartooning process itself. This piece on ink washes (too scary for me, as yet!):

For those of you who may not know what an ink wash is — it’s just water
with a teeny bit of ink in it. When applied with a brush on paper, it appears grey. The more ink in the water, the darker the grey. You can play around with it to give all kinds of nice tones to a line drawing. This is how my webcomic “Velia, Dear” gets it’s tones, which are called “half-tones”.
If you can master the wash –I’m still learning, but I’m a lot more confident with it than I was a year ago — you can use it to create mood in a cartoon or illustration (some cartoonists prefer to use cross-hatching instead) — it’s a preference. However, I should add that newspaper comics rarely have a wash because of how they’re printed. Am I going off on a tangent here?
Anyway, the ink wash is a ton of fun when you get confident with it.

I look forward to her answer on where she gets her ideas from. It’s got to be good, ‘cos she’s sure got a lot of them.

A lovely visual gag from Piers Baker

I love the work of my fellow King Features cartoonist, Piers Baker