Posts Tagged ‘earthquake’
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Hello again,
Well it seems even with a wrecked city, the guys are still looking to have a good time, maybe to just take their minds off it all for a while?
Seems like the best option, if you can, is to try and go about your life as normal as possible, even though the reality is about as far as you can get from it.
Switching topics! Are you in the Auckland area? Would you like to come meet me? Talk to me? Buy some comics from me? Of course you would! Well this weekend I’ll be at Auckland Zinefest. Selling some comics, and ready to talk to anyone who comes by the half table I’ve been assigned. If you’re in the area, please come by. It’s a really fun event. Details about the comics I’ll be selling can be found here, and the details about the Zinefest are here.
Hopefully I will see you there on Saturday!
Thanks for reading,
Marc
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Looking back at this year, I realise what a strange year it has been. There have been plenty of ups and downs, but I’ve been consistently surprised with all of it along the way. It wasn’t a stock standard year. Which I guess means you mark it down as a year things changed. In certain scenarios that might not be a good thing, but I think if you look forward, then you can find positives.
Looking back there were some not so nice things that happened that I’d rather not dwell on. Even now, Christchurch City is still getting some big after shocks that the city centre has had to be re-evaluated again, so they can see what further damage might have occurred. Boxing day is not supposed to be about the town getting punched again! For all of you battling it out in Canterbury. My thoughts are with you. I hope your homes and businesses will endure after this tough period in the region has passed.
The year hasn’t been without some interesting moments though.
Some thoughts on 2010:
The World Cup – It was nice to have another sport besides rugby in the spotlight. That brief respite will be short lived though. 2011 welcomes the Rugby world cup, and this time I won’t be able to ignore it, as New Zealand is hosting it. I did enjoy the World Cup though.
Music – Seems like it was a year for revisiting some old friends. We had Soundgarden & Faith No More reform and start touring again. I was fortunate to see Faith No More play a show here in Auckland. Other bands began playing classic albums from front to back as a draw card to go see them play. It was amazing to see Shihad play both Killjoy and The General Electric live. The latter will be repeated again at the Big Day out 2011. Other bands from my youth that I saw were Metallica and the Smashing Pumpkins.
Travel – If you plan on going somewhere, make sure your shit is locked up tight, or you have a house sitter organised. As we found out after a couple of days in Melbourne – being burgled is the worst. That said, I had an awesome time this year traveling to Melbourne, Wellington and Christchurch.
Film – Not sure if I have a favourite from what I saw this year. I really enjoyed Pixar’s “Up” though – which I only just saw this year.
Finally, if you made it through all that. Thanks to you for reading this. I really appreciate all the support, all the comments on the comics and the site. It’s cool that some people have found it, and enjoyed it. I just want to keep going and making more stories for everyone, so thank you all.
Cheers
Marc
A couple of weekends ago I spent the day down in Christchurch. As per usual, it was a good chance to check out what has been happening in the city, and take some photo reference to see what has changed. Only this time I was expecting more. The city had some dramatic remodeling on the 4th of September via a 7.1 magnitude earthquake and since then has been adjusting. It was a good opportunity to walk around the city and see what is no longer there anymore. A lot of the buildings are just gone. No trace that they were there except the gaps between other buildings. A lot of the older stone buildings have lost facades, which hopefully can be repaired. The drive into the city showed house after house wrapped up on the rooftop as the evidence of a brick chimney which had collapsed inside.
For all that was lost though, you do get a feeling that Christchurch escaped something big. No loss of life is just a remarkable thing given the type of quake that had hit it. I’m very eager to see what the city will do to replace the buildings that it has lost. There is now a great opportunity to do some special things and give the city a newer identity. Updated to reflect itself post earthquake.
Aside from walking around, I also took in the Ron Mueck exhibition which is currently being held at the city’s art gallery. This guy makes the most amazing sculptures. The scale was always being played with, but each piece had immense detail. A stunning exhibition, and I am really glad to have taken the time to have seen it. This exhibition is running until the 23rd of January 2011. If you are going to be in Christchurch any time from now until then, I highly recommend you go check this out. Admission for an adult was $15 bucks. You won’t regret it. More information here.
It was a fantastic weekend in the garden city. The sun was out blazing, and the city always feels so alive when people are out enjoying the weather. I have some more photos up at my Flickr page.
Thanks for reading,
Marc
Hello!
Hopefully the week has been treating you well!
Today’s page was loosely based on real life. It’s dedicated to my friend Matt. I hope you enjoy it!
Meanwhile, did you hear about Robin Williams donating his total fee from the Christchurch show he is performing back to the city to aid the earthquake relief effort? That is a pretty amazing thing to do. He is doing his stand up in Christchurch on Friday night – so if you were thinking about going, there is another reason to do so. I’ll be seeing him when he does his show in Auckland the day after that. Should be fun!
I guess I should get to planning next weeks page!
Thanks for reading,
Marc
Well, I finally got back to making comics. Apologies that this is not up to the usual full colour standard. I am still without my equipment. I went old school on this comic and took the lo-fi approach of drawing it by hand onto paper.
I kept it rough on purpose. It helped me speed it up, and get the page done faster. A lo-fi comic after all, is better than no comic at all, right? There is a light at the end of the tunnel though, and hopefully I should have some gear sorted soon. Which means getting back to my normal routines.
My thanks to Matt Wood, thisisrabbit and Jimmy Misanthrope for contributing some art and helping keep this website going while I have been unable to get anything up.
Thanks for reading,
Marc
Christchurch – the day the earth didn’t stand still
September 9th, 2010 |Posted In: Blog, Uncategorized
It was 3am local time in Melbourne. I had forgotten to turn my phone to silent so that any incoming texts or emails to it would not wake me. Instead, that familiar chime came through, waking me. I give myself 2 minutes to decide whether to roll over and go back to sleep – or to clumsily find my way to the phone and check it on the other side of the hotel room.
I’m glad I forgot to turn my silent function on.
A text from my friend Richard was informing me that a huge earthquake had just rocked Christchurch (where he lives). The rest of the morning was spent trying to gather as much information as possible while the city slowly came to terms with just how much damage had been caused. The best information source seemed to be a combination of the talkback radio broadcasting in New Zealand with residents recounting their experience, or Twitter.
An event like this is very surreal. Just hours earlier I had been on the phone to Richard. While we were taking in some late night activities in Melbourne, he was doing some late night gaming – everything was fairly normal.
Christchurch is my home away from home. I’m due to return in November and I’m guaranteed to not like what I find when I get down there. There are two sides to this story though. One is of survival. Miraculously, while there were some serious injuries, no one died. On the other side of the coin, the city will never be the same again.
ActionMan Adam is all based in Christchurch. It’s practically one of the characters in the story. I’m going to keep a close eye on the city as it rebuilds, so I can portray it as accurately as possible. The place won’t look the same, but life will get back to normality, with time.
In the meantime, my thoughts are with everyone who is down there. Let’s hope the city can get back to functioning as fast as it can!
If no one has done it yet, now is probably a good time to stock up on your survival kit!
If you’d like to donate for the people of Canterbury, you can do so by visiting the Red Cross NZ website – which allows you to do it online, or has further instructions for other ways to donate.
Thanks for reading
Marc