What is it? (NSFW)

I googled "Micturating Angel" and I found this:

Kids, it's all about dental hygiene here, now innit?

It's hilariously brrrilliant - I don't get it, but it's awesome. It's WHY it's awesome. And it fits with the Angel too. Ha!

Have I posted this before?

I dare you to tattooo this on your FACE!

[seeing things]

Got a lot of photoshop stuff to catch up on with this project...

good things it's too cold to sit in my room and cut things up!

I might turn this into a T-shirt!

But why is she pissing? (Pt2)

It is difficult to fully verbalise the thoughts that go into making this comic - it's why I make pictures, they capture what I want to say with precise dream-scalpel-incision ambiguity.
Like a diamond made of jelly.
Anyways, why is the angel micturating?
Other than the fact that I think "micturating" is a hilarious and terrible sounding word, behold Exhibit A: Albrecht Dürer's Crucifixion (1489).

"That's gonna leave a mark..."

I love Dürer's work.
Now, what are those two rascal angels doing on either side of the cross?
DO YOU SEE?

Exhibit B, Gaahl, former vocalist of black metal band Gorgoroth:

How NOT to eat Black Forest cake...

A few years back, Gaahl (know your metal: click HERE) beat the bejeezus out of someone in his home, who later testified that our hero collected his blood in a cup. Gaahl said he was just trying to protect his rug from the bleeding (which makes him a nasty Lebowski - that rhymes!)

Now, imagine you're being beaten to death by Gaahl, who seems to be enjoying his handywork. You're trapped. He's belting your face. Your bleeding enough FROM YOUR FACE that he gets a cup and starts collecting your blood. WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?!! What's he gonna do with that?!!

OR.
You're on a cross, dying. You've been imprisoned, beaten, humiliated and now you're dying a painful death, in public. And someone's there to collect your blood. Not to help, but to collect your blood and later even worship the vessel used. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?!!!

Primitive blood sacrifices (hey, have you heard of my black metal band, Easter yet?)

http://uscds.bandcamp.com/track/primitive-blood-sacrifice

I said primitive blood sacrifices have been around since forever. "The blood is the life!" Why? It's amazingly red and without it living things die. (Human thinking is very simple in many ways.) The Bible is full of instructions on how to do it and how much God loves to drink blood and smell burning flesh/ fat, and whilst it's a global phenomenon, we shall focus on Judeo-Christianity. The Angel is a sort of mockery or challenge of that tradition: it is her recycled blood that is sought after and captured for whatever religious purpose. It is her waste that is holy and beneficial and helps transcendence to divinity (or at least to being blessed. There are many philosophies that will tell you that true enlightenment comes from debasement or from contact with the lowest of the low. Hell, Buddha loved the lotus flower for it was a thing of beauty growing from shit and muck. Even my lecturer at Uni summed up life as "from shit flowers grow". Well our Angel will skip the mudplay and we shall stick with recycled blood. Blessing from below, eh wot?

ISSUE 5 OUT NOW + some other important things

[NOTE: THIS POST WAS EDITED ON 10.JUNE ]

Hello friends!

Been a while, but I've been away in Japan, and then busy since I got back making a fillum of my adventures. But sucka there's good news a-plenty!

i) issue 5 is out now AND ITS AN EXCLUSIVE NET-ONLY RELEASE (see below to read/ download).
ii) an anthology of issues 1 - 5 is out now at Minotaur and at The Sticky Institute.
iii) there's a new publishing schedule in town.

And it goes as such: from now on I will only publish the Angel in hard-copy format every 5 issues on. That is, the next hard-copy release will have issues 6-10. Then, 11-15, and so on. The next physical release is due in October - around Hallooween. After that, I will publish it when the next 5 are ready - however long that may take (see what happens when you have a job?!! Fuuuuuuu...).

Okay, so first, here be the cover of the anthology you should be looking out for:

ZOMG! I hate doing graphic design!

Now, here then is issue #5 (click to open in new tab, or right-click, save as...):

* as PDF

* as CBR

Or just read it here, now...

Feedback is welcome AND mandatory!!! :D

Screenshot (of the shape of things to come)

Issue #4 - OUT NOW

Hi Mortals!

Issue #4 out now at Minotaur and at Sticky.
Or if you're an interwebs browser nerd, here it is as

PDF - click HERE
CBR - click HERE

Or just read it right here, right now.
(Btw: reminder - next issue will be a month late as I will be in Japan. For more details, see my post on March 15.)

If you grab a physical copy, you will note some of the pages are in the wrong order - consider it an EXTREMELY RARE edition, a right collectable!

Buy the T-shirt of this HERE

When's the next one out?

I'll be hitting the printing presses this week for Issue #4, so they'll be on the shelves later this week (@ Minotaur and @ Sticky).
Look for this:

Oh dude, you got zapped!

I'm going to Japan in April, so issue #5 will come out in May. After that, the Angel will come out bi-monthly, ie: every second month. This is due to work commitments unfortunately. Making the comic takes a very long time - time I don't have because I'm off toiling to pay the rentbillsfoodfuckngggrrbbllammmmaaahhh, etc. The more comix y'all buy - the less toil I have to do so I can work on this ALL THE TIME. You likey comix or not? Buy buy buy!!!

So our schedule for this year is:

May - issue #5 - I'm planning to do a collected 1-5 book as well.
July - issue #6
Sept - issue #7
Nov - issue #8

I will also be moving the issues to the start of each month (as of #5).
I'm planning to do some other Special Eds as well, and hopefully I'll be able to punch out a bunch of other comix I did earlier - we'll see.
Here's a sneak preview of some upcoming Angel stuff:

But why is she pissing?

Let's get to the nitty-gritty about this comic that seems to kick most people about the teeth:

micturation = pissing.

Ergo, the title of this comic is The Pissing Angel.

BUT WHYYYYYY?!!!

Truth be told the title came to me years ago, when I made the original booklet this series is sort of based on (see blog post HERE ).

It just jumped into my head. I just like the sound of it. I don't even know where I learned the damn word and that's important to mention: English is a second language to me, I learnt it when I came to Australia in 1986. I was 11.

There are words I like in English purely for the sound of it, and I guess "micturating" / "micturation" is one. If you think about it, it's a wonderfully 'hard' word, a lot of consonants for an action involving fluids, ie: softs. The word almost doesn't fit, at least "piss" sounds like the deed.

Next. I grew up around hospitals/ medical equipment, so I dig medical terms.

Next. No I don't get off on chicks pissing.

Next. Pissing Angels are actually quiet common in Europe (where I'm from). You'll see them weeing in fountains, as little statues at home, as soda water dispensers, etc. My grandparents had one and I was very intrigued by the concept of a cherub/ angel (a supposedly holy critter) taking a piss - something seen as "rude"/ vulgar - yet this was supposed to be an object of humour!

" I'ma put muh dik on yo' drinkin' water!"

It's important to realise that this comic is not to be taken seriously, btw, or not TOO seriously.

Lastly, as explained in Issue #1: there's the religious connection with blood, blood-letting, blood-sacrifice, blood of Christ, bleeding Christ (in some depictions he looks like he's pissing from his ribs, hahaha!), and so on. Our Angel uses second-hand blood, ie: piss to baptise or whatever it is she uses it for.

It's important for her to do this as she is The Outsider and therefore must shock. She can not make friends with "nice", but must rock their world in order to open their eyes.

And if I offended you, oh I'm sorry...

But maybe you need to be offended

But here's my apology and one more thing...fuck you!

"Can't Bring Me Down" - Suicidal Tendencies

And so on and so forth.

Any questions?

Stiff competition?

No, not really but I did almost jump out of my skin when I picked this up at a comic store the other day:

"Borement" is a great word, I will use it, Wise Lee!

That feeling of "You bastard!" at the same time as that feeling of "You marvelous bastard!" had me cursing and clutching this baby like you wouldn't believe.

Okay. so what is it?

It's a mainstream comic, it's called PUNKS, it's made of collages (very likely on a computer), which means they sorta beat me to superfame for collage-comic production. Yes the Angel is older, and truth be told, it's better too.

Here's some more images:

actually fuck it, no, you can google them yourself.

I'm shittyhellyeah balls out excited by the fact that a big publisher-backed mainstream collage comic is out there hopefully attracting a new audience to collage and détournement (as much as you could call this comic or mine détournement [huh? what? Know your destruction, click HERE.]).

Sadly(?) for us The Angel is waaaay weirder, so only the brave will find their way to it. But if this be the gateway drug that brings them here, then hooray for this, and I will be waiting with my seductive treasures my pretties...

Now all y'all go forth and tell everyone this is the year of the collage comic! That this is the Year of the Micturating Angel!

ps: some notes on future editions. Issue 4 will be out in about a week or so, issue 5 will be delayed by a month because I will be overseas.

[this post has been edited, big time a day later]

Reviews, kind words, etc - people who like "The Micturating Angel"

Dear Xtian:Just wanted to tell you that I enjoyed very much your delightfully scabrous micturating angels in Hydrolith 2!All best,

Sasha Vlad

The above was an email sent to yours truly by a fine Surrealist and it warmed the cockles of my heart. Please, everyone start referring to the Angel as a "delightfully scabrous" comic! 

I've also come across some other reviews/ recommendations on this here Interwebs, so here we go:

from Surrealismo Internacional [surrint.blogspot.com.au], a Spanish blog dedicated to all things Surrealism, we find a review of Hydrolith #2, the anthology wherein the first issue of this comic was published last year (see earlier entry HERE).

Quote:

"Among the many illustrations, with a predominance of collages and drawings, but also paintings and digital works, I can only highlight some preferences:  ...[a] very original comic [by] Xtian, Melbourne, entitled The micturating [sic] Angel , "fairy science and erotic" in which he systematically involved with a fun result, on some figures to George Levis, narrating the stories of girls Bella Hayley, Molly, Gaby and Lucinda-all a discovery that makes us want to do the same with many bookmarks, or even indifferent comics (in these, the improvement would be obvious)."
(I translated this with Google...)
See original article HERE. 

The reviewer also posts a page from the comic, which I'm very happy about.

I had to google who Georges Levis was - a flattering comparison I have to say (THIS should give you some idea - oh and the link is NSFW, ooo-err).

Our third and last (for now) kind champion (David Nadeau) is from Canada. His  blog is also devoted to Surrealism, is called présence du surréalisme [surrealismeactuel.blogspot.com.au] and we find a simple recommendation of a T-shirt related to the Angel (one of the Secret Chiefs designs - huh? what? click HERE ).

To these people I say 

THANK YOU.

Feedback, reviews and recommendations are most welcome. Whilst I don't expect anyone "to get" what I'm doing with this comic (9 times outta 10 I donno either), it's great to see people connecting (positively) with it.

EXCELSIOR!

New T-shirt in Merch store

I should've done this one ages ago!

image c/o redbubble.com

Click the pikkie to go there. And if you do, redbubble are having a sale, so type in TOPLESS20 to get 20% off.

There have been sightings of the comic on other blogs from around the world, so I'll be posting some links soon!

It sounds like.... THIS!

A wonderful example of seamless collage would be this here tune (see below, but read this rant first) by one my faves, Anaal Nathrakh. It is a a perfect blend of brootal metal-riffing and then their rendition of "Vesti la Giubba" (I had to google the title, and here's a lad who knows how to sing the bejeezus out of it:

I get goosebumps listening to this here Pavarotti chap

Now then, my aim with The Angel is to create something like this song (yes, below, but keep reading). It's a punch and a kick and almost insanely anarchic, and yet beautiful - and no, the lyrics do not matter (not to me), just like the words in my comic don't matter (they're funny, but they shed no light on what the story is). And the transformation from "the brutal," to the other, "the beautiful" is seamless.

So if you want to understand The Micturating Angel a bit more, stick your ears close to the speakers (it will hurt, but you'll get it).

Goosebumps again.

More ramblings soon-ish. Issue #3 is out now, so go get 'em tiger!

Issue #1 - original dialogue - web exclusive

Hiyya pals!
Today is a mini celebration of sorts - I'll be taking copies of Issue #1 to some comic/ zine retailers to test audience responses. So it's sort of an "unofficial launch day". To celebrate, I'm posting all of issue #1 here (again), but this time with the original speech bubbles. I'm sure some readers would rather the whole series was like this, but I'm afraid that's not to be. Still, with these original words, you get a different kind of surreal effect, sort of like watching Twin Peaks, where sometimes the dialogue would make perfect sense, but the scene was utterly baffling nonetheless due to the visuals.
Anyways, ENJOY!