ALIA Graphic Podcast

A group of young Indigenous creators have banded together to create Stick Mob Studio and have recently published three graphic novels. We're very excited to talk to Declan Miller, Seraphina Newberry and Alyssa Mason about how the studio came to be and their three books now published by the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. You can find out more about Stick Mob Studio on their website:  https://...

In this month's creator chat we talk to Mirranda Burton. Ten years after her debut graphic novel Hidden, Mirranda returns with Underground an excellent graphic novel that explores the Vietnam War and the conscription protests in Australia.  To find out more about Mirranda Burton check out her blog:  https://mirrandaburton.blogspot.com If you like what we're doing, hit the subscribe butto...

In this special short episode, James and Iurgi discuss the recently announced winners of the Comic Arts Awards of Australia. 2020 was a great year for Australian comics and all the awarded graphic novels and creators in the Bronze, Silver and Gold category are excellent. For a full list of the Comic Arts Awards of Australia recipients please visit:  http://ledgerawards.org    For mo...

In this month's roundup episode Iurgi, James and Jade discuss the Eisner Awards, the Aurealis Awards, sales of Manga and comics hitting an all time high in 2020 in the U.S. and their favourite picks from this month's batch of comics and graphic novels.  To close the episode, James mentions how the first session of our brand new ALIA Graphic Novel Club went.  For a full list of the news d...

In this month's creator chat we talk to Remy Lai, the creator of heartwarming and beautiful graphic novel Pawcasso, now out through Allen & Unwin.  To find out more about Remy Lai check out her website:  https://remylai.com/index.html If you like what we're doing, hit the subscribe button to stay up to date with our chats. You can also follow us on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/...

In this month's roundup episode, James, Melody and Gabby discuss some of the latest news and their favourite picks from this month's batch of comics and graphic novels.  To close the episode, James discusses the upcoming ALIA Graphic Novel Club.  For a full list of the news discussed and all the new interesting graphic novels that have caught our attention please visit our blog:  ht...

In this creator chat we talk to Safdar Ahmed. He first got everyone's attention six years ago when he published Villawood: Notes From a Detention Centre in partnership with GetUp! Now, he has published Still Alive: Notes From Australia's Immigration Detention System.  In the chat we discuss what got Safdar into comics, what his influences are, the Refugee Art Project and of course, Still Aliv...

ALIA Graphic's Tara talks to our second international guest, Ashley Hawkins otherwise known as  @MangaLibrarian  on Twitter. They discuss different types of Manga, the different ratings, collection development and shelving. Ashley also suggests lots of great titles for different age brackets.  You can follow Ashley on her blog:  https://mangalibrarian.com  and Twitter:&nbs...

In this month's roundup episode, Iurgi, Tara and Gabby discuss some of the latest news including the Comic Arts Awards of Australia's recently announced short list, a really interesting webinar series all about Manga, the adaptation of Lady Killer, and a great list of graphic novels about climate change and environmentalism.  Then they discuss their favourite picks out of this month's new rel...

In this episode we talk with Australian creator, now living in Canada, Lee Lai. The conversation covers how Lee got into comics, studying at the Victorian College of Arts, her influences, relationships (which are the back bone of all her works) and Stone Fruit, her first graphic novel which is now published by Fantagraphics. You can follow Lee Lai on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/_lee...

In this month's episode, James and Iurgi begin with an announcement. ALIA Graphic Novels and Comics will be starting a Graphic Novel Book Club for library workers, starting from July. We are excited about this and we hope you are too.  Then they discuss the latest news and their favourite picks out of this month's new releases including: Dear Super-Villains - Michael Northrop, Gustavo Duarte...

In this episode we chillout and have a long chat with Nicola Scott, the Wonder Woman of Australian comic creators. We talk about how she got into comics, her experience breaking into the comics industry and San Diego Comic Con, working for DC Comics and Black Magick the creator owned series written by Greg Rucka with amazing art by Nicola, published by Image Comics. You can find out more about Nic...

In our first roundup podcast for the year James and Melody discuss some of the most interesting news of the month and highlight the most interesting new releases.  For a full list of the news discussed and all the new interesting graphic novels that have caught our attention please visit our blog:  https://aliagraphic.blogspot.com   If you like what we're doing, hit the subscribe bu...

In this episode we chat with Tim Smyth, a Social Studies secondary school teacher from the east coast of the US, our first international guest, who's been using comics and graphic novels as teaching tools for years. We discuss how he got into comics, what made him start using them in the classroom, the great benefits of comics in teaching literacy and Tim gives us some of his top tips for teachers...

Bruce Mutard is one of the biggest names when it comes to comics in Australia. He has published lots of short comics and a few graphic novels. He was also involved with the Perth Comic Arts Festival and now he’s in charge of Australia’s most important comic art awards. In this chat we talk about:  Bruce's influences What inspires to make comics His thesis on comics and The new Ledger Awards f...

We kick start the year with celebrations. We are graduating from baby to toddler. It's our first year anniversary on 20th February and the ALIA Graphic secretary James Baker sat down to have a long chat with ALIA Graphic Convenor Iurgi Urrutia. Among other things we discuss: What inspired the creation of the group How easy or hard it is to form an ALIA group Plans and dreams for the group This is...

We end the year with a very special creator chat with Holly Jayne. Bunnygirl is her first graphic novel which she initially published as a zine and was then picked up by a publisher. Holly talks about toys, books for kids, craft, and so much more! This is a great chat and an inspiring story to end the year. You can find out more about Holly and her art on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artof...

In this episode we wrap up the year and each team member discusses their personal favourite comic of the year.  We start the episode with a bit of a look at the year and a few  thank yous . We especially want to thank the Australian creators and publishers that have engaged with us, given us feedback, words of encouragement and participated on our creator chats. You are awesome and we ho...

In our November roundup podcast we discuss the big year that comics have had on Kickstarter, the upcoming graphic novel based on Anthrax's classic Among the Living album with an incredible line up of creators and the Ledger Awards' shortlist for best Australian comics. The team also highlights their favourite picks for the month: Reaver Vol. 2 - Justin Jordan, Niko Henrichon (Image Comics) Sapiens...

This month we have a chat with creator James Foley. James found early success with the delightful picture book The Last Viking. His latest graphic novels is Chickensaurus, the fourth book of the excellent S. Tinker Inc. series. James takes us through how he got into comics and some of the comics that influenced him. The discussion includes:  How he got involved with writers' associations...

In our October roundup podcast we discuss a new line of early readers by Harper Colins dedicated to comics, Lumberjanes going to HBO as an animated series and an article that appeared on The Conversation discussing fake news and how comics can be useful for media literacy purposes and helping readers to develop critical reading skills. We mention new titles by Australian creators: Under Earth by C...

In this episode we discuss 'Feels Good Man' a very interesting documentary about Pepe the Frog and how it morphed into a symbol for far right and fascist groups, the astonishing latest reported sales of Dav Pilkey's new Dog Man graphic novel, the Ignatz Awards where two Australians received an award and the Harvey Awards. We also discuss new titles by Australian creators: Bunnygirl - Holly Jayne (...

This month we have a great chat with Shaun Keenan, the driving force behind Comics2Movies which is responsible for publishing various comics and aims to be a publisher for others. We talk about the gap in the market that Shaun identified and how he took the plunge to writing and publishing comics. Shaun talks about his first series XTC: Xtreme Champion Tournament and how well it was received. We a...

This is our second ALIA Graphic roundup podcast. In this episode James discusses comic book history and the complexities of following Marvel and DC's publication and business model.  Tara talks about Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Gideon Falls, which is set to draw to an end very soon.  Sarah, talks about Australian creator Safdar Ahmed and his eagerly awaited graphic novel: Still A...

This month we're very honoured to have a chat with not one but three amazing Australian creators. Campbell Whyte, Chris Gooch and Pat Grant are all publishing their second big graphic novel with Top Shelf comics this year. We highly recommend all three of them. We talk about their three graphic novels, how they ended up publishing them with an international publisher and not with an Australian pub...