About Laura

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I've been fascinated by comics for as long as I can remember.

As a child in the 1960s, my mother would buy bundles of comics from "White Elephant" stalls at jumble sales and fairs. Usually the bundles contained a dozen or so Gordon and Gotch black and white reprints of American superhero and horror comics (the covers were always absent which meant that they were discards). There was no real continuity in this process, as you never knew exactly what comics you'd get or what order they'd be in. The reprints tended to be about 80-100 pages each, and would combine several titles in one. Occasionally there'd be a full colour original that somehow found its way into the bundle (usually a "Classics Illustrated"). I treasured those, until mum would do a "clean up" in the sleep-out (where they were kept) and then they'd be gone.

Another big influence was Rupert Bear Annuals. My mother would take me to Princess Margaret Children's Hospital for one reason or another (epilepsy, speech therapy, whatever) and on the way back stop at the at the "Save the Children Fund" shop. Whenever I found a Rupert Bear Annual there, she'd buy it for me. Rupert was very much an English creation, and on each page his story would be tokld in pictures with a rhyme underneath each panel, with explanatory prose at the bottom of the page. He was always having adventures with nature spirits, mad inventors, and foreign or exotic folk. The annuals kept my imagination and interest alive.  My childhood was more than just stressful, and comics were one thing that alleviated the pressure.

 

I started drawing comics in Primary School using spare exercise books. They were all full of superheroes, secret agents and space adventures. Never showed these to anyone else at the time. The art wasn't that good that that's not the point. I thought I'd lost these but a few years ago my mother discovered them in a clean up and sent them to me. Things got lost in the 70s and though I stopped drawing them,  discovered underground comics, and my appreciation of comic art would never be the same again.

Much later, I tried drawing comics semi-regularly in the early 90s. Until then I had no confidence in my own abilities, and had no idea (other than myself) who I'd distribute them to. They were part of a bid to go to an SF convention in America. And then, the whole world changed for me again, as I began "gender transition" -- a process that took much of my attention for some years. It wasn't until 1998 that I started to draw comics more regularly. I was in the middle of my visual arts degree, and drawing comics was one way to relax.

Then in 1999, friends of mine came to Newcastle for This Is Not Art in order to distribute their comic book, Pox. I realised, after seeing their work, that maybe it wasn't too late to do my own comics, on ideas and stories that interest me. Hypergraphia #1 was the outcome, and I got hooked on the process of creating and distributing my own comics. I've always had troubles distributing the paper versions however - either I'm broke, or have difficulty networking.

In the middle of 2005, I discovered Venus Envy, a smart web comic by Erin Lindsay that treated a topic of interest to me, in a funny and clever way. It showed me that was possible do a web comic on a regular basis and remain fresh and interesting. Later in the year I started two experimental web comics at Live Journal. I had "artists block" while doing my Honours at university, and a web comic seemed like a fun project to get me going again. But Live Journal lacks a certain degree of sophistication needed to archive web comics easily. I looked around, and decided on Comic Genisis as a good host.

This, then, is the result. It's more easy and convenient to distribute one's work via the web, and Comic Genesis is designed to do just that.

Also see...
    What's Here | About Laura | A Trans Tarot Deck | Technical Notes | Trans Issues

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