NZLISTENER September 17-23 2005 Vol 200 No 3410
Upfront
Chris Slane by Diana Wichtel

The Listener's esteemed political cartoonist.

The writing was on the wall for Chris Slane's original career choice when he handed in an essay entitled "The Role of Cartoons in Town Planning". Slane has gone on to become something of a cartooning cottage industry. His eclectic output over two decades has included award-winning political cartoons, the crazy 1989 television puppet series Space Knights and a street cred-enhancing invitation to illustrate a story for Dark Horse's Star Wars Tales comic series. Slane's graphic novel, Maui: Legends of the Outcast, has been hailed as "a deceptively sophisticated little number". As he toils over things like Don Brash's wobbly bits and the foreshore and seabed issue from the seabed's point of view, the Listener pops into the studio under his house for tea and brownies…

Do people tell you to get a grown-up job? It's always the first question people want to know. Is it a real job? Can you make a living? How poor are you going to be? I guess I started out living reasonably simply, but I managed to live in London for two years doing cartoons. I've never had a proper job.

Is it an isolated life? It could be. You're beavering away in your attic. That's why it's quite good to share an office. But you do need to hide yourself away to think of ideas. In a crowded office, staring off into space is considered slacking.

So that's how you get your ideas? I've heard it described as "directed daydreaming", which is quite good.

On a scale from gentle to Vlad the Impaler, how would you rate your political cartoons? I'm probably on the vicious side. I take it further from the reality than some. Portrait cartoonists like [Murray] Webb have a huge degree of realism. There's a caricature underneath, but there's all this beautiful painting on top. When I draw a politician for the first time, it starts real and gets further and further out. I want to reduce them down to more of a logo or a cipher.

Your Don Brash is pretty far out … I emphasise the wobbly bits, the great Deputy Dawg droop that he's got on the upper lip and eyebrows springing up to here. He seems to have about three lids, doesn't he? Once I've got to the stage where I really enjoy drawing them, I find excuses to put them into the cartoons. Helen Clark and Don Brash are now my favourites.

They say people start to look like their dogs. Does the same apply to their caricatures? You often find something essential in someone's face and it grows more so over the years. They start to look like your work.

Scary. Do you get much feedback from the, um, victims? No. If you get too many requests for purchases, it means you've been too flattering.

Cartoonist Peter Bromhead has said just making a cartoon look like a politician flatters them. That's a good excuse for making a quick drawing. People enjoy the act of recognition. It's about simplifying reality, taking out the essential elements and reproducing them. I think that's in all art – something we recognise that we're hard-wired to appreciate. Spotting the tiger's face in the bushes.

Political cartoonists often seem like angry people. I think some are, but I'm not. I do sympathise a bit with politicians. They're human. But I don't think that's an excuse not to be satirised. Their human foibles are there to see and I'll be unfair to them all equally.

A week is a long time in politics. How do you choose what to do? It's tricky. You've got to think what will still be relevant when it's printed. If there's something big in the week, it's easy. Apart from 9/11. It was terrible to have to do a cartoon on that. It was right on deadline day.

That must feel like a huge responsibility. Yeah, when there's a tragedy, you either go all soppy or try to find someone to attack or criticise over it. It's going to cause offence if it's too out there. It's not going to be funny, that's for sure.

What did you come up with? It was a picture of the old Statue of Liberty. There was smoke in the background. That was about it. The horror.

Political cartooning is seen as something of a dark art. It's much easier to be negative than positive when it comes to cartoons. If you want to be positive about something, you find the negative of that and be critical of it. Otherwise you come across as a missionary and humour goes out the window.

How do you work – computer or the traditional way? Both.

You do other things, too. I do storyboarding for ad agencies. Occasionally, I do modelling work – 3-D cartoons, basically. I made the Germy Jims…

The what? You know, Germy Jims that hang under the toilet rim? I made those and puppeteered them. And the actual Toilet Duck itself. It gets me out.

Anything you'd really like to do? I'd like to do more comics. I've got some ideas going. It's horribly labour-intensive. My spot cartoons [see the Listener's Letters pages] have been syndicated in the US. There's a website over there, politicalcartoons.com, that takes your cartoons and resells them. It's American dollars.

Do you know where they go? You can look them up. One went to a women's erotic-writing magazine.

Yikes. You've gone global. Exporting cartoons on the Internet, yeah.

It's a good living. My father [former Privacy Commissioner Bruce Slane] used to say I looked like a student all the time. He's given up saying that now.

Go to www.listener.co.nz to buy Slane cartoons, T-shirts and merchandise.

Article: From Maui to Darth Maul
Chris Slane’s comic adventures in Aotearoa have transported him to a galaxy far, far away...

Eight years ago the Godwit Press published Maui: Legends of the Outcast, a graphic novel by Chris Slane and Robert Sullivan. Slane was a political cartoonist who’d been designing puppets for TV. Sullivan was a poet of Ngapuhi/ Irish ancestry. Together their work proved a hit, winning accolades from as far away as the United States. The Comics Journal described the Maui book as a ‘gift from the gods’, finding it "difficult to believe that a book this elegant, bold and mature could simply materialize out of nowhere." Of course, it didn’t. Maui’s sophistication and elegance had much to do with Slane’s fluid artwork and keen sense of narrative imagery, developed over many years in the trade.

Slane had been introduced to cartooning at primary school when it was Carl Barks’ Disney artwork and the War Picture Library series that first got him hooked. "Going to a school friend’s house there was a cellar literally full of classic British war comics," Slane recalls. " My friend eventually got bored but I spent hours in there looking at the great detailed art."

Later, he showed up at Auckland University’s Craccum offices, filling the gaps in the copy with drawings on deadline night for then-editor Louise Chunn. After finishing a degree in Town Planning, Slane wrote and drew a cartoon book for Auckland Regional Council landscape architects which apparently sealed his fate once and for all. He dropped town planning and took up a career as a cartoonist. Slane has since won several Qantas awards for his cartoons and is currently editorial cartoonist for the NZ Listener. But the Maui book is his most sustained piece of comic artwork to date."At the time of working on Maui, I was reading Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave Mckean, Jaques Tardi, George Pratt, and I found Mike Mignola’s graphic style very compelling," Slane says.

Interestingly, it wasn’t the first time that the Maui character had been rendered as a comic hero. In the 1970s Dick Frizzel had been commissioned to do a series of Maui stories in comic form for the School Journals and Slane took the opportunity to look up the local pop art painter to see that he wasn’t repeating something that had already been done before. "Dick invited me to his studio and showed me his original boards for his Maui - fantastic draughtsmanship! He had been greatly impressed by the Marvel school of dynamic figure drawing," Slane recalls. "Frizzel approached Maui as a kind of Maori superman, whereas Robert and I wanted to emphasize Maui’s role as the outsider - a damaged spirit who returns in an human form to plague the society which rejected him. We wanted to get away from the view of the legends as simply fairy stories for children with a Maori flavour. Our reading of the symbolism pushed us in a darker and hopefully more dramatic direction."

New Zealand publishing requirements for the Maui book demanded a glossy hard-cover format suitable for bookshops and local libraries rather than the traditional paper-bound format of most American comics. This gave the finished production a classy European feel and flavour. "I greatly admired those European graphic albums," says Slane, whose luscious designs took full advantage of the book’s quality production values.

Eight years on, Maui is still selling overseas. Last year Slane did a deal with Steve Malley of Antipodes Publishing to distribute it in the United States. This was followed by an invitation to illustrate a story for Dark Horse’s Star Wars Tales series. "Lucas Films approved me after seeing the Maui book," Slane says. American writer, Christian Read scripted the story ('Nameless' in Star Wars Tales #10, 2001) which built upon the Darth Maul character originally devised for the Phantom Menace film. Slane set about to use what he’d learned on the Maui project to help bring the Star Wars universe to life.

More than any other cartoon work he’d done before, the Star Wars comic won the approval and respect of Slane's children. The job also posed some new and interesting challenges for the artist. "At first, the emphasis for me was just getting an existing character right from all angles, angles you never see in the film, while giving him my own twist," Slane says. "Next, I wanted to emphasise the uneasy predator-threat feeling you get looking at the movie Darth Maul - the camouflaged tiger stalking you in the jungle. In his case it must have been a red-coloured jungle planet, I imagine. In the background I added elements of an alien-kiwi bush as scenery."

Colours were rendered in the States by Guillia Brusco and Matt Hollingsworth, from one of the studios that colours Mike Mingola’s Hellboy, a key influence upon the look and feel of Slane's original Maui comic. You can see some of these pages on www.slane.co.nz or visit the New Zealand cartoonists website on www.nzcartoons.co.nz where Slane and other local editorial cartoonists showcase their portfolios, sell originals and help raise the general profile of the art form. May the force be with them.

By Tim Bollinger for Pavement magazine.

Review -Maui: Legends of the Outcast, by Robert Sullivan and Chris Slane.
Bart Beaty, COMICS JOURNAL

I don't pretend to know what is going on the comics scene of New Zealand, so I'm not exactly sure how these things work. It may just be that a book like Maui: Legends of the Outcast is simply one of those amazing flukes that is occasionally tossed by the capricious gods of sequential art into the hands of unsuspecting comics readers as a test of the faithful. In the case of a book like this one it is tempting to believe in divine providence because it is too difficult to believe that a book this elegant, bold and mature could simply materialize out of nowhere.

Maui: Legends of the Outcast is aEuropean-style hardcover album produced by artist Chris Slane and writer Robert Sullivan which tells a number of bound-together tales of Maui Tikitiki-a-Taranga, an outcast trickster of Maori mythology. There are a number of different myths told here (including a confrontation with the Goddess of Fire to the capturingof the Sun in a giant net) and it is a credit to Sullivan's skill at telling these tales that the book holds together remarkably well as a single cohesive narrative line encompassing the life and death of Maui in just forty-eight pages.

What is most remarkable about the book, however, is the art by Chris Slane. Chock full of thick and heavy blacks that seem to rage across the page, it is all aggression, energy and power. Yet the sharp kineticism of the rendering is tempered by the subtlety of the colouring which is predominantly defined by muted greens and browns, highlighted by pastel monochrome purples and blues.The combination of frenzied linework and muted colour palate is just delicious. It may turn out not to be a gift from the gods after all is said and done, but it is the work of a supremely confident cartooning duo. And sometimes that's just as satisfying.-Bart Beaty

Review:

This comic has something for everyone. It's in the tres-hip hardcover
album format, so it looks like you're reading a Eurocomic or art book.
It's got fighting, disasters (fire, flood, famine), giant monsters,
nudity, trickery, and a superhero (who's not in spandex).
Seriously, though, this is a good book. It's a collection of myths
about the demigod Maui (who is evidently well-known through much of
the Oceania region, and is the one who is the namesake of the Hawaiian
island), weaving them together into a story of his life. Maui is the
Trickster figure in myths in this region, and he is shown bedeviling
divine personages and fighting great battles during his life. In the
process, many natural processes (like the frequency of the rising and
setting of the sun) and even their landscape are explained.

The writer, Robert Sullivan, joins together many legends about Maui,
and writes fairly decent dialogue, if a bit mixed at times (a blend of
slang-y, informal speech with more formal speech one often sees in
myths). He presents Maui as a devilish type who still shows his
divinity. The art is angular, almost blocky, and uses large amounts
of black as well as subtle color. Unlike some who use a lot of black,
however (Xander Cannon comes to mind), it isn't hard to tell what is
going on; the artist, Chris Slane, achieves a good balance and
clarity. The angular style reminds me somewhat of the style of one of
the Sandman artists, whose name is slipping my mind at the moment
(Hempel, perhaps?), but is excellent at creating a feeling of passion
and unreality. At first, I had trouble telling Maui apart from his
brothers, but this was probably because I was reading fast in my
eagerness (start by using the hairstyles, and you can move to the
different body shapes from there). The artist has a good sense of
pacing and "camera angles," and does a great job of telling this tale.

This was created in New Zealand, so it'll be hard to find. You can
try the publishing company (Godwit Publishing Ltd., 15 Rawene Road,
P.O. Box 34-683, Birkenhead, Auckland, New Zealand), or try ordering
it from a bookstore using the ISBN.

[ (C) 1998 Denise L. Voskuil-Marr]

Review :Maui’s Tale In Graphic Detail.
The Dominion Dec 1996
What do you give a teenaged skateboard dude who is into global youth culture for Christmas? A book? You’ve got to be kidding. A book about indigenous Aotearoa history? Get real.

What about a “graphic novel” that’s got kneecappings, slaves called “maggots, self-mutilation, hints of incest, and a man who climbs into a giant vagina? Perfect.

Chris Slane (cartoonist) and Robert Sullivan (poet) tell the story of Maui in a graphic novel. Graphic novels are not read like books. They have to be taken, and reviewed on their own terms. They require a more roving eye and a holistic approach to gathering information from text and pictures. They impress the reader as art as much as straight textual narrative....

Graphic novels, however, speak most loudly to teenagers and twenty-somethings, and this graphic novel is the perfect way to inculcate Maori legend into global youth.

Sullivan certainly keeps the momentum up in the text. The characters often speak very modern English. On an expedition to slow down the sun, one of Maui’s brothers is worried that they will be “fried like chips”. The narrative is carried by the characters, with very little voice-over from on high.

Slane’s drawing is confidently angular, and gives an edgy, sharp feel to thousand-year-old tales. It is surprisingly dark drawing- many panels are as much as 30 per cent black ink- but this suits the subtly shaded flat colouring. This is much better than attempting to mimic a stereotypical Maori artist style.

Bill Paynter’s lettering is crisp and unlike many graphic novels, there is a wonderful absence of exclamation points! ( Handwriting by Slane, font by Paynter - CS) Mix sharp art, add pacy, witty writing, mix in good technical layout and colour and you get something more than is ingredients. best of all, maui exposes what I never knew to be an earthy, lusty, violent rip-roaringly good story to much wider, younger non-Maori audience.

The story is not just good because it is maori and it is not special because it is graphic. Both the story and the way it is told can hold their own anywhere with examples of a great tale well delivered in this medium. This is a deceptively sophisticated little number.

WK Hastings is a Wellington writer and critic.

Hung, quartered and drawn.

The Listener's poltical cartoonist attends a conference of his peers.

Article By Chris Slane

The stench of softness and genteelism wafts through your newspaper, your political cartoons are just a cheap form of sucking flattery, but no offence!

Pithy comments from the Nosferatu-like presence of Peter Bromhead and others livened up a series of free-ranging workshops at the first ever conference of editorial cartoonists in Wellington last month, hosted by the cartoon archive of the National Library in Wellington.

The mystery of why so few women were present was not solved by the gathering of mainly blokes. The suggestion that perhaps women didn’t possess that gene led to a blatantly sexist discussion of other missing genes, such as the infamous “video timer-setting” gene. Perhaps they just don’t have the time to waste, or is it sensitivity to caricatures? Ruth Richardson, offended by one cartoonist’s wide depiction, once issued an invitation to examine her pecks, close up.

Former prime ministers and newspaper editors were also fair game for the poison pens drawn up before them. Dominion assistant editor Frank Stefanski was pack-mauled for his paper’s free-market approach to cartoonists. Like old-time seagulling on the wharves, a flock of freelence cartoonists must send a cartoon in the hope of being published that day.

There has often been a sudued tension between cartoonists and editors but rarely does it boil over in the same way as in the case of one Australian cartoonist who, exasperated by constant editorial criticism, stamped into his editor's office and slammed a newly won cartoon trophy down on desk. " I don't give a stuff what packet of cereal you get your prizes out of- you're still no bloody good!' snapped the editor. The heavy bronze just missed his head.

Editors are not necessarily the best judge of whether a cartoon is funny, admitted Herald editor-in-chief Gavin Ellis. In the long years of Minhinnick's reign at the Herald there was simply no divergence between the views of the editor and the cartoonist. The two roles need to be separate, Ellis believes, to allow original voices to be heard. A good working relationship between editor and cartoonist seems to be the key factor in determining how much creative freedom a cartoonist enjoys.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer outlined the "wonderful byzantine compexity " of New Zealand's defamation laws. Cartoonists enjoy a greater freedom than writers in attacking politicians he believes, because the cartoon is more obviously comment. Our juries have been loathe to reward politicians for taking cartoonists to court. Has he ever sued for defamation himself? Only to preserve the reputation of the Prime Ministers office -of course.

That's what they all say, Jim Bolger once revealed a similar attitude about Garrick Tremain, saying "Doesn't he know if he attacks me he attacks the country?"

Perhaps our best potential cartoonists such as Alan Moir are lured across the ditch by big bikkies. (Junior cartoonists start on $50'000pa while top Australian editorial cartoonists can earn as much as A$250-300,000pa.- more than their editors.) The Bulletin magazine was at it's ciculation peak in the days when it published more than 60 cartoons per issue, from 25-30 cartoonists. Cut the numbers back and watch circulations drop, noted cartoonist Lindsay Foyle. The body representing cartoonists, the Black and White Artists Club is moving away from awards piss-ups getting more proactive- from running cartoon workshops in provincial schools and conferences.

For cartoons to develop, editors must positively encourage cartoonists, but cartoonists to should also think outside the square:- business pages need cartoons too, syndicate yourselves, and in the words of Black and White Artists Club president, Rod Emmerson:" get in the faces of editors and journos." Not just the in the faces of politicians. Judging from this forum, our cartoonists may have begun to do just that.

Bolger, after looking at the great number of cartoons had at the expense of politicians: " shouldn't people like you be paying us?"
"Oh, but we are, Mr Bolger," replied Mrs Tremain.

NORTH SOUTH MAGAZINE CONTRBUTORS BIO

BOOKS

"Billy T James Real Hard Case Book" 48 pp BW Beckett Publishing (1986) ISBN 908676-13-1
Art By Chris Slane ( 25,000 copies? )

"Billy T James Real Hard Case Book #2" 48 pp BW Beckett Publishing 1987 ISBN 908676-28-X
Art By Chris Slane ( 25,000 copies? )

 Sheep Thrills Godwit Press (1989) ISBN 1-86954-004-2 ( 5000 copies )

 Maui: Legends of the Outcast. 48 pp Colour Godwit Publishing, ( Random House )
New Zealand © 1996 ISBN: 0 908877 97 8

"Let me through, I have a morbid curiosity" ( SB NZ$14.95 24 pages B&W )
ISBN 0-473-05472-8  (1998 1000 copies self-published)

Article: WHAT THEY SAY AND WHAT THEY MEAN ...

The life of a freelance cartoonist is often varied and challenging. Most clients treat cartoonists with respect and professionalism. However, occasionally you encounter the complete philistine- someone who thinks all artists should suffer for their art and are only too willing to help them achieve that end. These clients from hell can be spotted before the commission is accepted if you look out for the warning signs; certain phrases will often give them away. I have come to treasure these howlers over the years and, with the help of friends, I have collected them into a list for easy reference. Other cartoonists, illustrators and art directors have contributed to the following.

What clients say to cartoonists and what they really mean ...

"It's a charity job."
Except for the printer, the plate-makers, the professional fundraisers,
and the delivery boy.

"It will be good exposure for you."
Like selling matches out in the snow.

"You will be able to make the fee shortfall up on the next job."
But not from us, because we'll avoid you after this.

"It will only be used on the net."
Where it will sit for years and get downloaded by thousands of people for free.

"It's for educational purposes."
We're trying to teach you a lesson here.

"It looks fantastic but we want a few changes.
"We need you to fix up our doodle.

"Our magazine is not a commercial publication".
It sells 40,000 copies per week but still doesn't want to pay for talent.

"Just do something quick."
But if it isn't fantastic expect us to criticize the hell out of it.

"Just do something simple."
Any moron could do it, that's why we picked you.

"I can't pay much."
But I don't want it to look cheap.

"We'll get back to you."
We've found a homeless person who will do the job for a bottle of meths.

"We need it fast, time is running out."
We've had the job for 3 weeks but now want it off our desks so we can go on holiday.

"Will the charge be lower -as the cartoons will only be used inside the company?"
The company has 100,000 employees worldwide.

The cartoons will be used internally"
You should consult a doctor before attempting it.

"Don't spend too much time on it."
Work all night on it but only charge me for 5 minutes.

"It could mean on-going work for you."
If you like cleaning toilets, selling peanuts, or life as an indentured laborer.

"I would be more than happy to send a copy as a token of our gratitude".
A useful paperweight.

"Do you actually earn a living doing cartoons?"
Shouldn't you be starving in a garret?

“I really like it, but the boss isn’t so sure”
My wife doesn’t like it.

“Now I couldn’t draw to save myself, but...”
 I can’t draw but I have a bizarre belief that I can.

"Is it extra for colour?"
And black is too expensive.

"The cheque is in the email."
Virtually.

LINKS

New Zealand cartoonists site... nzcartoons.co.nz/

Below; Two Gold Clio Awards won for a Canon Copiers TVC featuring latex puppets of Regan and Thatcher,
created and performed by Chris Slane (right), assisted by Phil Parker.