TheComicSpot

Listen to Episode 3 - Talking with Phillip Bentley.

If you listened to the first episode you'd know that i have only recently been active in persuing my passion for Australian comics. This wave of interest in comics came during a bout of chicken pox a couple of years ago.

When i started searching around for more information on Australian Comics i found that there wasn't a great deal to be had. There were snippets here and there but nothing that had an overarching narrative so that i could get my head around 'the scene'. I wanted to know what had come in the past, who the players were, who the boosters were, whose tradition i might find myself in the line of. I didn't want just a list of what had been published and when - though that is usefull in its own way. I wanted a riproaring yarn about the geeks, freaks, nerds, outsiders and outcasts that came before me and i wanted to hear tall tales and true. Difficult stuff to come by There was some genre nostalgia material online but that's not really my scene.

There wasn't and hadn't been for some time an Australian comics industry as such. There had been peaks and troughs of creativity. Boom and bust cycles where it looked as though a few voices had been heard above the fracas of the British and US comics flooding these shores. But comics in the literary, underground tradition? Where was i to go? How was i to know?

It was then that i came across Word Balloons. Phillip Bentley's fanzine detailing his time in comics as a reader, collecter, retailer and creator. It also featured long, informed, intelligent and in depth interviews with (gasp) Australian comic creators. I was a pig in mud and loving it.

Word Balloons is a brilliant publication - i've lapped it up. Ask Phillip for your copies - email secondshore(at)yahoo.com. Meeting Phil at the DoujiCon in July 07 was great as i actually got to question him first hand. Jo, Bernard and i took the opportunity to grill him even further when he came into the studio.