You must be joking!

A selection of work by cartoonist, children's book illustrator
and director, Greg Holfeld, whose graphic novel, "Captain Congo"
has been nominated for the Children's Book Council Awards this
year!

I was thrilled to meet the talented and friendly illustrator, Greg Holfeld, this weekend, at Supanova Convention (Olympic Park, Sydney, Australia). I was able to tell him how popular "Captain Congo and the crocodile king" is proving with the students at my school, and he autographed some copies of his previous picture book, "You Must Be Joking!" (It was only later that I realised that the boy hero's pet in that book is a super-powered Jack Russell terrier!)

We enjoyed a laugh together about the bizarre prevalence of purple gorillas in classic comic books (and at least of his own works.)

Greg also threw into my package of purchases a copy of "Monkey, Bug, Rabbit & Goose have lunch and save the planet", issue #1 of a unique comic book reader he created for for fledgling "comicophiles" at his children's school.

Thanks so much Greg.

I'm watching the Watchmen

I've been reading the first few chapters of the acclaimed graphic novel, "Watchmen", in preparation for seeing the new movie today. I have had conflicting reports about whether to read it all yet. Some movie reviewers are insisting that people must read the graphic novel first, in its original form, but having always had a vague idea of the premise, I've probably now read enough - up to Dr Manhattan's origin story in Chapter 4 - to have a good grounding in the whole Minuteman/Watchmen eras.

Avid comic collectors, who read the graphic novel when it first came out in twelve parts, seem to be loving the new movie, but a few friends reread the book in recent weeks, before seeing the movie, and then wished they'd gone into the cinema with vaguer memories.

So I feel I'm prepared, but not over-prepared.

Later that day...

I'm baaaaaaaaack!

Ok, advice for everyone. Yes, do what I did if you don't know the story. Buy the graphic novel and read the first four of the twelve chapters. Enough to see the pre-history unfold in the film, but all the McGuffins are left intact, and the changed ending will be fresh and new no matter what. The "visual literacy" of this comic (and movie) is... astounding. And the songs in the soundtrack are perfectly chosen

Guest star Gene

Here's a graphic novel with a great Star Trek twist: "Roswell, Texas" by L. Neil Smith, Rex F. May, Scott Beiser, and Jen Zach was just published by Big Head Press.

March 5, 1836: Davy Crockett kills General Santa Anna with a single 600-yard rifle shot. The Alamo still falls to the Mexican Army, but Crockett escapes to join Sam Houston. The delay at the Alamo gives Houston time to prepare.

July 4, 1947: Lieutenant Gene Roddenberry, a young Texas Air Militia pilot, shoots down an unidentified flying disk near Roswell, western-most city in the Federated States of Texas. Agents from the United States, the California Republic, the Franco-Mexican Empire, and the Third-and-a-Half Reich all want to learn the flying disk's secrets.

Gene Roddenberry is one of many familiar characters in this alternate history tale. The book is printed in black & white, but you can read the entire story, in color, online or just the sequence of pages and the closeup featuring Lt Roddenberry.

I just ordered an as-new b/w book version from an Amazon second hand market seller, as Amazon itself is still awaiting stock.