Asian Report, a show on New Zealand’s National Radio, recently played a two-part documentary (made by Sapna Samant) about anime and manga. The first part focuses on the cult of Hello Kitty, while the second looks at the growing influence of anime and manga here in New Zealand. I get to chime in, along with various much more interesting people, and it’s a great little doco. You can listen to it by clicking these links:

Asian Report part 1
Asian Report part 2

Or you can download it:

Download part 1 (mp3)
Download part 2 (mp3)

As part of this year’s Library Week celebrations, I was asked to come up with the first four panels of a brand new comic. Now we’re inviting YOU to continue the story. There are prizes to be won…

* The competition runs for 4 weeks, from Monday 20th July and will close on Friday 14th August.
* Each week you can read the frames already published on the site, decide what you think should happen next and illustrate the next 4 frames
* Upload your images to the Library Week website.
* A winner will be chosen weekly and their strip will be made a permanent part of the story.
* There are two age categories for this competition, 13 – 18 yrs and 19 yrs +.

Find out more here.

Here’s one of the reasons I’ve been busy lately – a 16-page comic by me, commissioned by Waitakere City Council. ‘The Journey‘ gives a little history of the city, including how it became New Zealand’s first eco city. Waitakere have made the comic available for download from here.

I spent much of my childhood in Waitakere and have been impressed by its evolution into a genuinely environmentally-concerned eco city. It’s a damn shame that the government seems hell-bent on making Waitakere disappear into its planned ‘super city‘ – and I can only hope all the hard work on eco-friendly development doesn’t disappear along with the city’s name and identity.

Update: I’ve just noticed the pdf is in printing order, rather than reading order. It’s possible we’ll get that fixed; in the meantime, you’ll just have to look for the page numbers… 🙂
Update 2: Actually, it’s only the larger pdf (of the whole comic) that’s in printing order. If you download it in sections (using the smaller files), those are in the correct reading order.