ombu (Patreon)

hello mates. happy to show yas the cover of the book here, first time it is having air blow across it:

it went to print last week, 255 pages worth, after nearly a year working at Amazon and almost 5 years of writing and drawing the thing. biggest undertaking so far, for sure. i definitely wld not have had as much time and space to give it proper thought and detail if it weren't for u ppls support, so thanku infinitely for that. its will come out in June in australia and November next year in the US, so its still a while off, but im fkn DUN and its out of my hands now. feels good!!!!!! cant wait to show u some more chunks of it soon, and to think about what might come next.

drew the above piece but not sure if it works the way i had hoped. at least i exorcised the idea and left it on the page, it can now live in the patreon cemetery. before i drew it, i hoped it was gonna be my monthly Overland piece, but my editor there was graciously like "yeep if....you.......rly think so??". so i had another crack and ended up with this different, bigger piece, which is getting close to finished:

im yet to add the text yet cos im still working on the script, that'll go in where the squiggly lines are. hoping this one can tie into the existing campaigns to restore the river, and maybe be one of those big street posters, we will see how it shakes out.

as Norman Gunston said, the yarra used to be so polluted that you could catch a bream already wrapped in newspaper.
this cld be us:

Got these shirts a couple of days ago, which is exciting.  They’re rly nicely printed with water-based inks by my old friend Stewie at Gauntlet Press in Footscray (get him to print ur shit!!!), and the shirts themselves are made by union members at Qualitops in Reservoir.

I dont wanna get them into shops or hock them far and wide, i just plan to get them to patreon supporters, will post em out first to people who have supported here at higher levels for over 6 months, or who hav chucked me over a certain $ amount since they signed up. i’m gonna email u ppl specifically separately to this post asking for yr size and design preference, will do that soon. and then prolly next week i will email out a discount code and private web store link and wotnot so u other supporters can buy one if u want. Shld be able to ship them out in time for xmas no worries. Also if you want to buy anything else from my online store for xmas gift or anything, the patreon code giving 25% off is permanently set up there, just enter discount code “PAYTRONE” when u get to checkout. or just tell me if u want anything for free lol.

Also, this is boring but I’m gonna revise the patreon pledges / rewards, cos they’re a bit dusty and out-dated, esp since some of them were tied to the completion of the book (including ppl in acknowledgements etc). so yeah time for a bit of a redux. if u feel like i owe u sum stuff or there's anything in particular you'd like me to send you in the mail, feel free to hit me up, as always.

'Panels that transform', the group exhibition featuring work by Safdar Ahmed, Nicky Minus and me is finally gonna open next week i think, after lots of not so novel coronavirus delays, thanx to the tireless work of Can Yalcinkaya and Justine Lloyd. It will show at the MQ Art Gallery in Sydney wednesday - friday 10am-3pm each week until i think the 10th of December, and maybe regional galleries after that. u can check here for more info or msg me if ur thinking of heading out there n i can try find out more info.

also for Sydney ppl, tomorrow saturday at 10am there is an action at the corner of King and Mary streets in Newtown, in support of RAFFWU Better Read Than Dead booksellers industrial action. they won their huge strike a few months ago, and reached an in-principal agreement, but the boss isn't following through on all of his promises. pls head along and support their efforts if u can, show the store that there is community support. more info can be found here.

Stoked that the above poster has been added to the ‘Celebrate Peoples History’ project that Josh Macphee has been running for the last two decades out of the US, which i have long admired n learned a bunch of stuff from. 

You can browse all 150+ of the mostly risograph posters, and buy any of them for $5 a pop here: https://justseeds.org/project/cph/  here are a few of my old favys :

draft concept and final version of new piece for the UWU farm worker campaign (with about a dozen less fingers in the final version). these guys last week saw piece-rates in the industry get outlawed finally, pretty big deal imo.

it is a shameless redux of this old IWW drawing by Ralph Chaplin from a hundred years ago:

ok more to come about the shirts soon but i think i'll send this off now!
will chuck in another half finished drawing 4 good measure:

<3