Westbound

Westbound illustration, blue background with a pink netted shopping bag with while graphic design flowers in it.

First market of the year! I’ll be selling my wares including my newest stickers, comics and badges alongside the wonderful Amplified Press at Renew Adelaide’s Westbound!

Come along and chat to me about comics, Papercuts and even the book (I’m so close to finishing so I’m starting to be happy to talk about it again). Looks like there is going to be lost of rad local creators, musicians and food. A market not to be missed I say!

Westbound details
Date: Saturday 15 March
Time: 12-6pm
Location: Lion Arts Factory Courtyard
Entry: Free!

No Such Thing As A Fanzine

Possibly the highlight of 2024 for me was getting to see my favourite podcast (No Such Thing As A Fish) live and even meeting the hosts after the show!

I've been planning on making a fanzine about NSTAAF for aaaaaaaaages (I have a very detailed notes document on my phone with all the things I plan to do). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to fully realise my dreams of the in-depth, lovingly crafted, interactive fanzine due to still needing to spend most of my time getting the book coloured. But thanks to fellow Fish fan Owen, we managed to cobble to together a little 6 page "Which Member of Fish are you?" zine (plus bonus fold out Episode Name Generator!).

I managed to pluck up the courage to gift each of the members a copy of the zine at the post-show signing, and they even mentioned the zine on a real episode of the actual podcast (Episode 561).

Suffice to say, I was chuffed!

I still hope to make the full zine at some point, but until then, if you're a secret NSTAAF fan (or know someone who is), I've popped a free digital version of the zine up on my online shop for folks to download. 

Teen Zine Club

Pink background, hand drawn image of two hands passing a zine, the zine’s title is ‘Teen Zine Club’ drawn to look like different letters cut out from magazines. The hands are surrounded by art supplies and cute shapes like hearts and stars. The hands are wearing handmade looking friendship bracelets.

Teen Zine Club is a drop-in art & zine making workshop run by seasoned zinester and comics maker George Rex (a.k.a me). Each month there will be a different zine making activity for participants to try but they are also welcome to bring along their own zines to work on during the session.

Sessions are free and held on the second Thursday of each month, 3:30-5pm, at the Seaford Library. All materials supplied.

Find out more about the sessions, how to book in and access info here.

Poppy & Gina's post-it note challenge

When I’m not reading comics, talking about comics with my friends or making my own comics, I teach comics. I predominantly run one-off workshops in schools and libraries, mostly to excellent children and young people. But I also have a few students that I teach privately, one-to-one. One of these students is the lovely Poppy.

I’ve worked with Poppy for a little while now - in lessons we generally talk about drawing techniques, try out different art mediums or materials, and chip away at putting together original comics (Poppy will be selling her very first comic at the upcoming Zina Warrior Print Fest). One of the drawing activities we did recently was a daily character challenge. During one lesson, Poppy and I came up with a list of 30 characters (e.g. a fortune-telling mermaid or a goth unicorn), one for each day in June (each of us taking turns to come up with a character). The aim was to draw a character a day, with the only restriction being that they had to be drawn on post-it notes.

I absolutely love these kind of challenges, although I have to admit that I can also find them very hard. I really struggle to put time aside for myself just to draw (when it’s for no reason other than fun). Also sometimes my perfectionism can sneak in and stop me enjoying the thing I love most - telling stories with pictures.

But having the restriction of the post-it note was really helpful for me to finish this challenge. It gave me a boundary to work within and meant that I felt more inclined to push that boundary (like trying to fit in full scenes onto my small little post-its and not just characters). And I was really happy with how a lot of them turned out and even prouder of myself for pushing through the days where I wasn’t so happy with the work and still sitting down and doing the next day’s challenge. Perfectionism in my work is something that I struggle with A LOT (although you wouldn’t necessarily know it from looking at my wonky imperfect art) and I have to keep catching myself when I get stuck In a perfectionism spiral and remind myself to just put pen to paper, and it can’t be perfect but it can exist.

In the end I had a lot of fun designing these characters (there are definitely a few that I wouldn’t mind maybe turning into full-comics ideas) and it was particularly fun to do the challenge with a friend and see how different or similar our characters turned out to be. Here are some of Poppy’s favourite designs:

Looking to take on a fun drawing challenge? Why not try out our post-it note drawing challenge for yourself (and a friend)!

All you need:

  • Pen

  • Post-it notes (your choice of colours)

  • A month with 30 days (so you can draw one a day)

  • Our character list below!

If you do decide to take on the Poppy & Gina post-it note drawing challenge, let me know! I’d love to see your versions of our characters.

Poppy and I will be selling physical zine versions of this list and some of our favourite characters at Zina Warrior Print Fest. If you’re on Kaurna land (Adelaide) on the 8th October, come along and say hi!

ADL --> MEL

This week I thought I'd share my most recent zine which I launched in June as part of a zine pack with Adelaide zinestars Rebecca Sheedy and Simon Gray.

We all went to the Festival of the photocopier this year (I also tied this visit to Melbourne with my first visit to my mentor Mandy Ord) and all wrote zines about the trip. 

If you like the comic and wish you had your very own copy, don't worry, you can! You can Find copies on my Etsy store here.

I'm working hard on getting my readable thumbnails finished by the end of this month. (Hopefully) I'll post some soon so you guys can see what I've been doing while locked away in the studio. 

Gx

Packed for Success or #FoTP

Hard to sit on, harder to draw.

Hard to sit on, harder to draw.

Travelling hasn't always been my thing. Not against it by any means, I'm just more of a home-body. ANYWAY, as of last year me and the wonderful zinester Rebecca Sheedy (but I call her Bec) have kind of made this pilgrimage to The Festival of the Photocopier (FoTP) to meet zine nerds and sell our zines together. We are both quite terrible at peddling our personal wares and usually end up pedalling each other instead. 

So we made out way over to Melbourne for our zine heaven. We left Thursday evening for 5 days of no stop zine launches, bubble teas and trip to Daiso (the $2.80 shop - everything is literally $2.80). Know that I would be bring home a lot of zines (and tbh a truckload of adorable cheap stationary from Daiso), I knew I needed to pack smart. I only had carry-on so I planned my attack.

February the 14th (a.k.a Valentines day) was a super exciting day for zinesters everywhere for it was the date of THE FESTIVAL OF THE PHOTOCOPIER ZINE FAIR! My personal highlight of the FoTP as I love zines and being able to get new zines, make pals and meet the zine creators who I'm crushing on. Of course often I'm too scared to say anything to them but this year I did lot better than last year. 

Look at all my pretty new zines! I got quite a haul from the over 150 stall holders.

Look at all my pretty new zines! I got quite a haul from the over 150 stall holders.

Bec and Soph's feet at an exhibition all three of us were in.

Bec and Soph's feet at an exhibition all three of us were in.

The view of the city from Northcote was stun-tac-ular!

The view of the city from Northcote was stun-tac-ular!

We got to travel on mostly trains while we were in Melbs - which is great I far enjoy the energy of a train ride to that of tram or a bus. The comfort that it's on tracks and will stop at every stop. 

We got to travel on mostly trains while we were in Melbs - which is great I far enjoy the energy of a train ride to that of tram or a bus. The comfort that it's on tracks and will stop at every stop. 

Sellin' my wares to the good folks of Melbourne Town.

Sellin' my wares to the good folks of Melbourne Town.

SO. MANY. PEOPLE.

SO. MANY. PEOPLE.

My attempt at keeping a diary during the trip. Highly unsuccessful. I did keep dot point notes however. 

My attempt at keeping a diary during the trip. Highly unsuccessful. I did keep dot point notes however. 

Adelaide zinesters represent! Simon Gray and Rebecca Sheedy lookin' adorable. 

Adelaide zinesters represent! Simon Gray and Rebecca Sheedy lookin' adorable. 

We spent a good amount of time at the train station. 

We spent a good amount of time at the train station. 

I had a grand ole time in Melbourne and some how managed to get home not over the weight limit (planned packing ftw). Makin' new pals and seein' old ones. I even got to meet Mandy Ord (one of my mentors for Oh Brother) for the first time and I don't think I made (too much of) a fool of myself. But I'll tell you about meeting Mandy in another post!

As for now, be happy, drink tea and as always..

Stay Excellent, 

Gx