Concrete Playground

There is something wonderful about the fact that Matt Taylor drew his new comic, Lars the Last Viking Goes to the End of the World, completely by hand and on large pages. It conjures up images of old school comic publications, or even Dutch master workshops. Which is fairly fitting, given that Taylor will be launching Lars at China Heights gallery this week.

Creative director by day, Taylor turned his design and art skills to creating comics after attending a graphic novel workshop in the US a year ago. The result of that inspiration is Lars: a viking who lives alone on a fjord, and whose adventures are rendered in bold black and white drawings. As part of the launch, there will be a short exhibition of the original pages that compose the book. What is immediately apparent about these pages is that Taylor's plump, cartoonish style gives the illusion of highly coloured sequences in a way far more effective that the actualy glossy colours of Marvel and DC publications.

If you can't get enough of Taylor, you can catch him at this Graphic panel at the Sydney Opera House, and keep an eye out for his next work: it may or may not be a zombie love epic.