What have been your personal cartooning/comics highlights of 2014?
Yikes... good question. I guess, like last year, working with Matt Kyme at IF? Commix. The guy seriously inspires and motivates me, plus he's my foil. Otherwise? Publishing my first graphic novel ('Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat') and creating monthly series 'Bullet Gal', along with pushing through two issues of the collaborative series I do with Matt, 'Tales to Admonish'.
What are some of the comics you've enjoyed in 2014?
Highlights have been Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' 'The Fade Out', Brubaker (again) with Steve Epting on 'Velvet', Matt Fraction and Christian Ward's 'ODY-C', and Fraction's work with David Aja on the sadly inconsistent 'Hawkeye'. Also Gail Simone’s output with artist Walter Geovani on ‘Red Sonya’, and I loved Mike Deodato's art in 'Original Sin'. From Australia? Craig Bruyn's series 'From Above', Matt's 'That Bulletproof Kid', and the ongoing 'Kranburn' yarn by Ben Michael Byrne. And old skool? Getting to properly read the 'Miss Fury' series by the great Tarpé Mills.
What is something non-comics that you have enjoyed in 2014?
Re-reading the literary back catalogue of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, getting to catch a very good cinematic take of a comic book ('Captain America: Winter Soldier'), whizzing back to Melbourne in August to properly launch IF? Commix, meeting some like-minded sods, eating sushi as often as I can, working on novels, and seeing my daughter Cocoa — she's nine now — grow and shine while we watch.
What are you looking forward to in 2015?
We're publishing the full 12 issues of 'Bullet Gal' as a trade paperback through Under Belly Comics in North America, which is a real buzz. But otherwise I'm seriously excited about working with Matt again in an adaptation of my novel 'Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?', plus plans for 'Tales to Admonish' that include stories by fellow Aussie artists Dan Watts, Asela De Silva, Gareth Colliton and Adam Rose.
