The comics show
Description
The writing and drawing of comic books has remained a little-known and under-rated area of New Zealand culture. Director Shirley Horrocks reveals it to us as a highly creative subculture with a rich local history. Despite a moral panic about comics in the '40s and '50s (recalled here by Eric Resetar, the grand old man of local comics), later decades brought us the exciting counter-culture work of Barry Linton and the other artists of Strips magazine (such as Dick Frizzell and Grant Major), the new directions taken by women artists such as Coco and Pritika, and the publication of long-form 'graphic novels' such as Ant Sang's Dharma Punks and Dylan Horrocks's Hicksville. There are now comics for all ages and interests. Comics have links with animation and with music (as shown by Chris Knox and Karl Wills among others). This highly entertaining and visually inventive film takes us from Auckland street culture, to Wellington's 'Eric Awards', to a do-it-yourself comic collective ('Funtime' in Christchurch). This is an unexpected, eye-opening arts documentary with broad appeal.
Runtime
51 min
Subjects
Geography
Genre
Date of Publication
2007
Database
Alexander Street
Direct Link
Similar Films
Sunday morning. Garry Trudeau on Doonesbury at 40. The comics
60 minutes. 'what's funny?'. Andy Rooney asks
Discovering Herge
Inside the Middle East. Comic book heroes
PSYCHED comics
The superheroes of tomorrow
Mr. Fish. Cartooning from the deep end
White scripts and black supermen. Black masculinities in comic books
Independents
Naji al-Ali. An artist with vision
Manga world
Tatsumi
The Art of Spiegelman. From Raw, to Maus, and Beyond
Experimenting with comics