Happy Indira Comics things
A processing diary-type list of the comic-related things in my life that make me happy (in no particular order):
The length of time and relentlessness with which I have pursued my particular comics thing
How the very early issues of Nice Gravy were sealed up and put on the R18 porn shelf in Mark One comics (body politics explored through a lot of gore and nudity)
The number of flame wars I was involved in on the Black River Digital NZ comics listserv
The really good Trump-dissing comics my youngest child has made
How you could think of me as the Smurfette of Oats and you wouldn't be entirely wrong
When people who haven't made comics for ages start again
How during the making of Three Words it felt like I was in an awesome gigantic tough and loving girl gang
When I used my girl-group comic I Have Control of My Hair as a means to make friends with the members of Fake Purr & now I'm in a band with Brenda
Staying up late with my brother and (at the time) husband to hand-bind My Soiled Sample covers and the smell of the weird glue we had to use
That some of the best Oats cartoonists are those you've never heard of like Soft Keith and Sgt Dion of the Yukon
How some people who only know me from social media (kindly) think I want to 'make it'
Having cups of tea and gluten-free biscuits at Darren and Ruth's house and that our kids are friends
How Nice Gravy was famous for five minutes in the international academic feminist community and there was lots of interesting pondering and inclusions in Masters theses
How we had a pie warmer at the Soiled Sample exhibition
Being on a bus and through the window, seeing a giant Ducklingmonster comic stuck to a fence
Discovering the work of The Rabid, my favourite NZ cartoonist and now friend
All the friends I have made/make
How relieved I feel when a comic that has been clamouring in my head finally comes out
How I suspect one or two competent boys secretly like it when I harang them in public
How I have THE BEST IDEA EVER for a comics exhibition and one day I shall do it
That I coined the term ‘incompetent boy comics’
Moving on from my furious ‘NZ Comics’ anger and the changes in the environment that meant I could
How funny it was when recently someone described me as one of the "new faces" of NZ comics
How many comic boys were jealous when Gary Panter friended me on Facebook
How my friend Tim teaches me about the computer stuff
Acknowledging the important music and comics relationship with Beth and Chris in Sonic Comic and how great they were to work with and how rad that thing is
How awesome Sarah was to work with on Three Words and that we are now friends
The period when I purposefully only distributed my comics by leaving them in inorganic rubbish collection piles
When Tony Baloney posted a picture of themselves wearing a t-shirt with one of my comics on it
How wonderfully curmudgeonly my Oats pals are now
How I think about comics in interesting ways
How I sometimes help others to think about comics in interesting ways
Editing Three Words and just how amazing that book is
How I went all policy analyst on NZ comics sexism via quantitative evidence and everyone saying it wasn’t sexist had to go ‘urk’
Clayton Noone's new cartoons
When Brent Willis asked me to do the cover of a Bristle annual
Going to Cape Town and meeting my comics soulmate Sebastian Borckenhagen
Confusing all the authors at the Cape Town book festival with both my accent and my insistence that I wasn’t a writer or an illustrator but that I made comics and that this was a totally different thing to either of those
The comics exhibition I curated at Creatures Gallery and how I framed all the works myself with second-hand frames and hit my fingers so many times with the hammer
That Oats was cool but comics-wise I am so much more
The unbearably sweet comic Richard Fairgray made about our friendship
Donating my Oats comics to the Alexander Turnbull Library because Sam Orchard is the Alexander Turnbull Library cartoons and comics curator and I trust him
That even at my most unwell I still manage to make comics and music
When I make someone laugh out loud
When I make myself laugh out loud
Donating my complete set of ‘Bone’ to the Mulberry Grove School library
‘Upgrading’ to an ink pen only when I felt I’d reached the limits of a ballpoint
That time the hosts acted out one of my comics as a radio play on National Radio
When I found all that screentone in someone’s rubbish
Being asked to write the Murray Ball obituary for the Spinoff and feeling like I did a good job
That Murray Ball's son reviewed another Footrot Flats essay I wrote for a book and loved it
How I recognise someone being good at what they do is different from me not liking it
How I do my best to stand up to comics bullies
Being on the brutal bloody front line of the great NZ comics gender wars of 2016ish and contributing to change
How ridiculous it is that I've been married twice and both husbands made comics
When some people from the policy analyst parts of my life see my comics and music and don't quite know what to say, and when people from the comics and music parts of my life learn about my actual job and don't quite know what to say
Making comics with the people who it is right to make comics with
Making comics alone (my favourite. Music is with others and that's also my favourite)
That I think maybe some people, who couldn't in the past, can now 'read' and understand what I'm doing with my comics
Spending five minutes at the opening of a NZ comics exhibition and the rest of the evening foraging in the skip outside the gallery
That I see comics others may not see, in all kinds of places and mediums
Learning to not get all anxious and ranty about everything that frustrates me, learning to pick my comics battles
When Ant Sang inspired me to draw at A3 size and how much I love it
The people who like and support my work
How in regard to comics, I am hardly ever referred to as 'Stefan's sister' anymore
Getting really drunk with pals after the Three Words panel at a Comicsfest
Managing to make my bipolar comics simultaneously happy and sad in exactly the way I wanted to
How humbling and amazing it was to get feedback on my bipolar comics saying I had helped and touched some people
That I have maintained my integrity
That even though I am an educator I have never 'taught' anyone how to ‘make’ comics because they are my own precious thing
How in the library Three Words has to have a red 'senior students only' sticker on it because it contains the word 'cunt' (more than once)
Finding comics I forgot I made
‘Captain Kaipara’ my regular high school newspaper strip and to this day the only thing I’ve drawn with a male lead
Hyping and including the less ‘visible’ comics and comic-makers I love, in my hairbrained schemes whenever I can
When comics have been part of wooing and falling in love (more than once)
How I choose one album and listen to it over and over and over when I am working on a comic, and that the next time it will be a different album
Managing to mostly avoid the comics situations I know are going to annoy the fuck out of me
That I still have a bunch of Whizzer and Chips / Whoopee / Buster annuals
That it was very nice when Toby Morris asked me to put some cartoons into the Spinoff
Moderating the Three Words + One Facebook group and just how supportive everyone was when the first group was insanely destroyed
That after a lifetime of refusal I am challenging myself to draw a comic commissioned by someone else and although it is really hard and not much fun I am persisting (and I have a new respect for those who do this all the time)
Giving away my originals to people who really love them
When all those people) left the NZ COMICS (their caps) Facebook group in solidarity
Hearing other dissenting voices
Finding out new obscure comics things
That I have perspective and comics are no more important to me than making music or writing or being a policy analyst. I need them all.
How I am slowly training my work colleagues that ‘graphic novels’ and ‘comics’ do not mean the same thing
That the way I make my comics and usually draw is intentional. I know what the fuck I’m doing
Being a bit infamous
This blog. Someone recently told me “you have managed to write about comics and not be boring and this is a remarkable achievement”. Heh
