Geek of Oz

When I first moved to Australia, I was not – as Dave Chappelle would say – having a great go at it. An ethnically ambiguous kid with a weird accent, in a weird city, with just one friend who was also all of those things and from the same country I’d just left, I felt pretty alone. I didn’t have anyone to hang out with, so my granddad would pick me after school on his bike and dink me to the local library. For a suburban Gold Coast joint, it had an impressively dense comic book section with a row of multicoloured beanbags guarding it like a protective fence from the other texts. The first thing I saw on the shelf of that hallowed ground was two collected volumes positioned side-by-side. The first was Batgirl: A Knight Alone , which featured the defining image of Cassandra Cain’s Batgirl: arms flexed gripping a Batarang and poised on a Gotham rooftop as the Bat signal was illuminated in the night sky behind her. The cover by Damian Scott was mostly all black - with the exception of a...

I didn't read, watch or play enough of any one thing to be able to make a dedicated top 10 list of books, comics, games, TV or films, so I'm going with the buffet option. Here's a list of some things you need to experience, some things that'd be nice to experience, some things you should avoid experiencing at all costs, and a few things I have yet to experience (but which are meant to be good all the same). In no particular order: BEST STUFF The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt   A marvel of video game design that marries an engrossing story to some truly excellent gameplay. Geralt's final chapter works well as a standalone and a capstone, and is definitely worthy of play. Star Wars: The Force Awakens It. Was. Excellent. Let us all rejoice that Abrams gave us a retro, swashbuckling tale of heart and humour in a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars Battlefront: Twilight Company Who'd've thought a video game tie-in novel could be so good? Far eclipsi...

Oz Comic-Con Melbourne is just around the corner and their stable of local comic book creators is massive! Among the finery you'll see Tom Taylor, Dillon Naylor, Tim Molloy, Colin Wilson, Jason Franks, Paul Bedford, Justin Randall, T-Rex Jones, Andrew Constant, Wolfgang Bylsma, David Yardin, Nicola Scott and many, many more .  To prepare ourselves for the coming awesomeness we had a chat to Futurama, The Simpsons and MAD Magazine artist, Dean Rankine. Ryan: You recently made a comment on Facebook which garnered all sorts of reactions. Would you say that your general advice for up and comers is "don't complain, just be better"? Dean Rankine: Ah, crap! I was thinking before the interview, ‘I hope he doesn’t ask about the facebook comment’! And BAM! Straight out of the gate! It’s true, I DID make some comments about ‘Australian’ comics and it sparked quite the lively discussion. And to be honest I’m not really sure what I was trying to say. But I thi...

Aussies do many things well but subtle isn't always one of them. Far too often stories taking place 'down under' can descend into a torrent of clichés complimented by the obligatory tracking shot of bounding kangaroos. Australia as a setting has a lot more to offer the world than what Crocodile Dundee or Baz Lurhman's 'Australia' showcased. My point being, the Australian setting is one all too easy to get wrong. And then there's Broken Line from Gestalt Comics which seems to effortlessly embrace this setting without resorting to any of the aforementioned 'Ozploitation' tactics.  Written by Andrew Constant with art by Emily Smith, Broken Line #1 bears the high production values and top notch story telling we have come to expect from Gestalt. Issue one opens with a stunning full page spread of a mushroom cloud, establishing a sort of post-apocalyptic setting, followed up by a close up of a rotting corpse almost zombie-like in appearance. A...

The majority of superhero magnum opuses should be put into historical context. Chris Claremont and Frank Miller’s formative Wolverine miniseries in 1982 owes much of its success to coining tropes and ideas that hadn’t existed for the character before, but are defining hallmarks today. Similarly, the darker, brooding elements of Batman wouldn’t have found their contemporary voice without ground-breakers like 1987’s Year One and 1988’s The Killing Joke. Take then, with appropriate context, how ground-breaking Miracleman was. Confronting most of the popular superhero storytelling tools – dual identities, gifting of powers, kid sidekicks – and brutally deconstructing the rosier, apple-cheeked paradigm of the Golden Age is something we’re fairly familiar with in a post-Watchmen world. In 1982, four years before a big blue god made a smiley-face on Mars, they had no clue what was about to hit them. I don’t want to reveal too much about this digitally-remastered classic for those who...

For those who like their fantasy alternative, there couldn't be a better time to be reading funny books. Series like Fables, The Unwritten, Rat Queens, and more recently Shutter all delight in mashing up the magical with the mundane. Minotaur taking public transport, a talking squirrel with a machine gun and magic rune-stones that double as mobile phones are all common sights in this emerging sub-genre. It is in this trend from which Hinterkind, a post apocalyptic fantasy tale written by Ian Edginton with art by Francesco Trifogli, is born. After a mysterious disease known as the blight kills almost all of mankind, the forgotten races of myth and legend emerge from their hiding places to reclaim the world. Trolls, fauns, faeries, elves and a myriad of other fantastical races all reappear and are known collectively as the 'Hinterkind'. Understandably, these Hinterkind are pretty pissed off at us homosapiens for chasing them into the shadows in the first place with ...

Right off the bat you can tell that Home Brew Vampire Bullets (HBVB) is a labour of love from all of the home-grown Australian contributors involved. HBVB is a quarterly anthology pulp book inspired by the likes of Tales from the Crypt, 2000AD, Métal Hurtlant and Ozploitation Movies. It’s a beautifully created piece of material that tantalises and leaves you wanting more. The second issue gets quite an increase in size from the first issue at 162 pages, and is chock full of amazingly written prose from a massive line up of highly accredited writers and creators. It features a superbly in your face cover by Sacha Brying , and a foreword by none other than Australian comedic legend Tony Martin . The material inside is not for the faint of heart with the books own website giving it a "75% R" rating, but if you're a fan of this type of genre you'd know this already. It’s available both digitally and in print form. As much as I'm trying to embrace the digi...

This weekend I had the pleasure of talking to comic book creator Ryan Ferrier. We discussed his latest series D4VE , as well as touching on some of his works such as Tiger Lawyer , and discussing our love of TV’s The Golden Girls. Billy Tournas: Ryan, thanks for taking the time out to chat. D4VE is a story, at its core, about a former hero now dealing with a crippling mid-life crisis. The Earth is inhabited only by humanoid-esque robots. Into its 3rd issue now, I'm curious as to where the idea for D4VE come from?  Ryan Ferrier: It kinda came from me wanting to do a big action book, a sci-fi kind of story. At the time I was reminiscing about my previous job which was very much like D4VE’s job. A horrible 9 to 5... Stuck in a Cubicle? Yeah. The two kinda come together and worked its way into D4VE. The story to me is equal parts catharsis and fantasy for me, if that makes sense? Yep. Like day dreaming at your job. Yeah for sure! And you know wanting to do s...

“The men involved in his wife’s death must die. All of them.” That’s the base premise for Dead Body Road, the new series from Image Comics'  Skybound Imprint. Revenge noir at its core, this book hits the ground running at a furious speed setting it apart from your regular revenge story. This is in part due the talent of the creative team at the helm. The story starts off with a botched heist, which leaves a security guard and the wife of our protagonist, Gage, dead. Tortured and broken within, Gage follows whatever leads he has, small as they are, to set bloody revenge against the people responsible for the death of his beloved Anna. The writing in this first issue by Justin Jordan is a solid introduction to the series, offering twists and leaving you wanting more. If you’ve enjoyed Jordan’s previous violence filled series, Luther Strode, you won't be disappointed with Dead Body Road. Matteo Scalera’s pencils and inks pop off the pages displaying the vio...