Issue 77

 It's a teenage diary. It's boring and awkward. I have teenagers of my own now. I read them an excerpt, they told me not to print it. Cancel my kids.

I print this because it's boring and awkward. We are all boring and awkward. Especially at 18, in Hamilton, in 1984. (Jul 2021)

(5th of the teenage diary issues. Also see issues 36, 40, 43, and 62)

Issue 76

"Time flies when you're head down arse up in the domestic kaka. Fourteen years ago (issue 26) Daniel Powell and I created our first diary comics to be presented as parallel strips linking my Wellington (Aotearoa) and Daniel's Verl (Germany). Back then our respective lives involved infants and toddlers, broken sleep and dirty nappies... Now Daniel and I have teenage children, dipping their toes in life's boozy waters 

...grander themes are almost lost to life's everyday soup of emails, caffeine, weather reports etc etc."

First A4 zine.

Feb 20, 2021/Whanganui Zinefest.

Issue 75

 

A6 Riso cover with regular black and white photocopied guts: 'Lucky enough to score a residency at Te Matatiki Toi Ora (AKA The Arts Centre, Ōtautahi), I was to deliver one public workshop and otherwise work on curatorial and conference projects scheduled for February 2021 back in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Yeah nah, didn't seem I was working with Ōtautahi enough in that scenario, so instead, I've largely ignored the vetted projects to interview a raft of local zinesters and indie comics artists.' Dec 2020.

Issue 74

First ever small A6 issue of Incredibly Hot Sex with Hideous People. Inspired by the zine vending machines at Auckland Central Library and Mashuko, Wellington. A6 be the size of a standard postcard, so this is a 'remove the staples' zine of useable postcards. The postcards themselves are inspired by novelty tick box postcards from the 70s/80s wherein the writer got to choose between tick box options such as: the weather is lousy; the weather is hot, the weather is sublime. Er... these postcards contain less predictable prompts, with some acting more like Fluxus performance art scripts. September 2020

Issue 73

"I was lucky to miss the txts and facebook messages until the end of Friday's teaching - 'Dad died this morning 8 am.' I certainly wouldn't have enjoyed trying to keep it together in front of an audience of students. As it was, I found out as I walked across campus. I then rushed to secret myself away in a private room, my panicked breathing eventually giving way to tears. Once I'd pulled myself together, I mapped a discreet route to my pushbike, hoping I could get there without bumping into any smiling waving colleagues or students." Writing and drawing. Photocopy and Risograph. The Grief Issue. June 2020

Issue 72

Online access to full PDF cos of Covid

"Pandemics, so sci fi sexy. Conversely, this here narrative on - wait for it - 'chicken rearing' runs the risk of boring you shitless. Even my own family, who I'd presume would be somewhat sentimental about this narrative are telling me to stop boring them with questions about our chicken life." 12 years of chicken rearing... somewhere between personal narrative and a 'how to guide'" 5499 words on chickens!?!? Egads. May 2020.

Issue 71

Part printed on Risograph. It took me a long time to come around to this new old piece of Japanese technology. I was even suspicious enough of its pretty colours to call a presentation at Dunedin Zinefest, 'Riot or Risograph'. Anyhoo, this is a 20-page zine, part photocopy on recycled paper stock, part risograph on coloured paper stock. Cartoons, drawings and text art. February 2020

Issue 70

Contains the compilation CD My Life with Miley Cyrus with contributions from a feast of weird-ass NZ musicians. Zine content is the third instalment of 'meeting famousness' narratives; regular folks anecdotes about selling shoes to famous actors, being movie extras alongside mega celebrities, and drunken after-party shenanigans. Drawings of everyday objects set the terrain. November 2019

Issue 69

  The eighth diary comic collab between myself and Daniel Powell. The rules: a comic a day for three months, the best of these presented on facing pages like some kind of parallel universe; our respective lives in Wellington, NZ and Verl, Germany, peering at each other. Jun 2019.

Issue 68

"This zine is my other contribution to [Cuba Dupa and] the Toi Pōneke art park. It's a collection of 5-minute drawings, usually inked just before bed. Perhaps being too tired is a valuable part of the process... Perhaps. Please don't presume it's trash just because these drawings only took me 5-minutes. These are the ones that made it, I throw out the most of them, honest." Mar 2019.

Issue 67

"Keeping the diary brought a new appreciation for the birds, insects, and domestic animals that share my corner of Wellington. I started to notice certain behaviours and habitats and learnt to identify different species. That's quite a shift for someone who's always been as humancentric as any other arsehole, never a member of Forest & Bird, never a Boy Scout, never a camper or tramper." December 2018

Issue 66

"In issues 49 and 57, I forced myself to write about parenting. And I mean forced. When I first had kids, it was all I could write about, but after the initial whiplash, the weirdness of having kids slowly fades. So much so that writing about parenting now requires my keeping a daily parenting diary, which I revisit to look for any patterns that might show me where the hell I am. I am lost to parenting, lost in parenting." 

Parenting - words and drawings. November 2018

Issue 65

Lyrics from the many bands that were formed around my midlife crisis project. It took Leonard Cohen seven years of schlepping notebooks around to write the lyrics for Hallelujah. It took Iggy Pop one evening to write the lyrics for The Stooges debut album. Limited release initially (saving for future exhibition/s on the project). Issue 64 editorialises midlife crisis phenomena and the specific project’s band methodology before dedicating a page to each band’s story. Jan 2018.

Issue 64

My midlife crisis project. An attempt to form a band every month of my fiftieth year. After an intro on the mythological midlife crisis and my monthly band methodology (or lack thereof), each band is lovingly recounted. Illustrated with crumpled set lists and other ephemera. Limited release initially (saving for future exhibition/s on the project). Issue 65 of band lyrics released at the same time. Jan 2018.

:Diary Comics (2006-2015)

My second book is compiled from selected diary comics 2006 - 2015, including zine material and previously unpublished comic panels. Intro essay by Tessa Laird: The cat has herpes, the kids have worms, the chicken has mites, and Bryce has an assortment of ailments beyond his digestive tract, including a spasming eye, aching knees, haemorrhoids, stiff neck, tinnitus, and even fleas! Additionally, 'the wife' accuses Bryce of having dementia. This is one of many criticisms she levels at him, which fits the artist-as-martyr model like a glove. Yet what emerges is not a portrait of a henpecked husband so much as a radically egalitarian domestic partnetship in which the wife, in all her fiery glory, speaks her mind, keeps Bryce on his toes and, when necessary, bursts his art-martyr bubble. Pikitia Press 2017. RRP $20