covers: DeeVee #1,2

D ee Vee was published by a trio consisting of Mick Evans, a freelance graphic designer who was already doing the necessary on Bacchus (the ad for the first DeeVee is on the back of Bacchus #21), Daren White, a chartered accountant who moonlights as a comic book writer and Minty Moore, who was working as a comicbook store clerk back then, all of whom have popped up on this blog from time to time. They launched in Feb 1997 and managed to get Pete Mullins to make a gorgeous knockout cover for their first issue. I attempted to keep up my end on the second issue, but I'm wilting in the shade. The series was an anthology that ran for fourteen issues, with one special during that time titled Life is Cheap by Moore and Single. The Book appeared quarterly and even bi-monthly for the duration of six issues. I drew a serial that appeared in all those issues and was later collected as Alec: How to Be an Artist, considered by some to be my best book. What it really needed, we can see with the advantage of hindsight, is for the character on that cover to have appeared in an eight page story every issue, and to always look as good as she does on there. I think the guys managed to get Pete to illustrate a couple of one-pagers along those lines, but more might have made the enterprise a more resounding success. But who can say? Everything in the business was following the trajectory of Newton's apple in those days. The thing I most like about 'those days' is the complicated ways we got things done. One thing was that I was doing my stuff for DeeVee in exchange for design work and story ideas, but once over a few beers Whitey got onto explaining to me the myriad equations and deals and exchanges by which money hardly ever changed hands but everybody involved felt they came out even, and furthermore, in all those fourteen issues, thanks to Whitey's acuity in such matters, Deevee never lost a cent.
Another thing I enjoyed about that period is that there was a sense of a lively scene here in Brisbane Australia. Pete Mullins had a full colour page in a national magazine, which he must have found time to draw in between all this other stuff. DeeVee were using my mail box at the suburban Paddington Post Office, but just a couple of boxes to the right of mine there was the one rented by the Platinum Grit folks, Trudy Cooper and Danny Murphy. PG was a popular indie comic book here but not known much outside of Australia.
"Platinum Grit began as a self-published printed comic from back in 1994 and was released up to issue 10 in 1998." It's still around nowadays, but in an online* capacity. You can read a whole episode at the site. It has a great quality of Australia about it, in its sense of character and space.
Update: They show it online then collect it in print, a publishing model that is becoming more prevalent of late. Corrected by Drjon. thanks.
After the DeeVee series ended they put out three special editions. Tom Spurgeon has just reviewed one of those.
Finally, a new issue is at the printer! I've drawn thirteen pages in it and I wrote about it on April 16.