Back again after a massively hectic month of article writing and editing! August has been an interesting month in the news, so here is your wrap up of all (most all!) things media related in Oz and New Zealand …

• Mandy Ord and her work was in the SMH last week also – you mgiht know her from the Inherent Vice event that was on down at the NGV, who did a cool comic book interview for us! Great article!
• Fintan Magee was featured on the SMH and The Age websites. We interviewed him this week about it all.
• There’s a bit of a write up about the Oi! You! show in NZ over at the Nelson Mail … interesting read! There’s also an article there about Josh Manu, one of the 20 finalists selected in the event.
• Stormie Mills got written up all over the place for his show at Metro, and this is a cool article on the artist – but, umm, I mean, that byline? lol – oh Herald Sun, you romance novel loving funsters, you!
• Oh look, another stupid law in South Australia – yeah, because removing some ones license is going to stop them painting. It was stupid when it was first suggested, and its stupid now. Wake up, SA – and what’s with media outlets using what look like legal pieces attached to articles on illegal work?
• We actually caught out OnePerth doing the same thing last week, where they had a piece on illegal graffiti (well, probably anything that looks colourful) being removed from all over Perth because the Skeksi, I mean, the Queen, will be visiting. They removed the pic and replaced it with a tag (which isn’t too bad a piece of calligraphic art). I guess its nice to see the media actually paying attention to its readers, but it would be nice if they all actually stopped using legal artwork to go along with their graffiti “scourge” pieces.
• Oh and hey look, go NSW! So progressive of you! Now that you’ve put in harder laws, you’re going to choke your legal system even more by forcing people who have”graffiti implements” to go to court, instead of getting a caution or diversion. Sounds great! Idiots. Ears said it perfectly in the article – “Until there’s some understanding and acceptance of the culture, and actual facilitation for it to grow – not just token gestures – then I don’t think things are going to change.”
• Anyways, on to something nicer – Toowoomba artist Ian McCallum did some legal work last week at Sojo Collections – looks pretty colourful and cool, dude.
• The Footlocker Art Prize was won by Brisbane artist Kalin Thompson, and heres an interview with him – nice kicks and nice work!
• Everyone’s talking about those “Banksy” inspired pieces that the NZ Police have done up around the place to get new recruits. Funny how they’d promote themselves with something that they are later going to arrest people for. I mean. Really?
• A little bit left of centre for the end of this run, but Gizmodo had an article up a week or two ago about an Alternate Realty application for iPhones that lets people paint the walls around the place … hmm. Yeah, nah.

Now, we certainly don’t condone illegal acts of vandalism here, but we will certainly condemn idiotic laws that are out of touch with modern culture. There was also a whole lot in the press in the last month about a whole bunch of stupid laws, and people being forced to pay ridiculous amounts in damages. It would be nice to see full cost breakdowns as to where all these officials get their estimates when they are claiming “it caused $100k in damages.” I bet in reality it costs a hell of a lot less than what is purported.

Regardless, I still think the Queen looks like a Skeksi.