Occasionally Asked Questions
Q: What does “not too orangey for crows” mean?
A: This is a reference to the Kia Ora ad of the 1980s. Kia Ora was an orange squash type drink, which was advertised with a cartoon of a boy and his dog being tailed by sharp-suited crows. He wouldn’t let the crows get any of his delicious beverage as Kia Ora was “too orangey for crows. It’s just for me and my dog.” As I wouldn’t want to put off our potential corvid readership, I labelled my blog as being “not too orangey for crows”. In fact, it is scarcely orangey at all… If you wish to see the ad, it’s on Youtube.
Q: Why “Kazmantra”?
A: Internet names are funny things… this came from way way back, (1997 or so) when I became sick of ending my informal emails “Kaz” and decided to flourish it up a bit by pretending to be a sorceress of some kind named “Kazmantra the Magnificent”. If this STILL seems incomprehensible, that’s because it is. Kazmantra was not only a sorceress but also had a brief stint as a vampire.
Q: On your gallery page, why do you list your sequential art as “Comics/Manga”?
There are many ways of referring to the practice of putting pictures and words in sequence to make stories. Sequential Art does what it says on the tin, but also sounds pretentious as a way to describe the kind of work that I do. Graphic novel is a fine term for book-length comics but does not fit shorter works, and is also slightly euphemistic. Why not just call ‘em comics, if that’s what they are? Broadly speaking I see nothing wrong with the word “comics” and feel that it’s use can be extended to cover any kind of work within the medium. “Manga” is also there as my work has been associated with manga through various sources, the Manga Jiman competition, the Mammoth Book of Best New Manga series, the IMAF festival, etc, so manga seems a relevant term to add.
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