Greg Broadmore is a self professed comics nerd and Conceptual Designer for Wellington's Weta Workshop. He has designed a statue of a transvestite for central Hamilton, drawn dinosaurs for King Kong, and styled a limited edition series of lethal looking Raygun collectibles or 'Infallible Aether Oscillators' that are part of an ever expanding universe. He is now evoking a lost age of exploration and discovery, by writing and illustrating 'Dr. Grordborts Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory'. Greg Broadmore is a self professed comics nerd and Conceptual Designer for Wellington's Weta Workshop. He has designed a statue of a transvestite for central Hamilton, drawn dinosaurs for King Kong, and styled a limited edition series of lethal looking Raygun collectibles or 'Infallible Aether Oscillators' that are part of an ever expanding universe. He is now evoking a lost age of exploration and discovery, by writing and illustrating 'Dr. Grordborts Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory'.Originally from Whakatane Greg was not often found at the beach.

"Almost everyone at high school was into surfing but I was the one drawing in the corner and playing video games. I used to draw on all my maths books and everything. Anything sci-fi, soldiers and spaceships, and just all that fun stuff. I was a huge nerd for star wars and aliens which just filled my books."

After a move to Wellington he worked in a video game store, freelanced as children's book illustrator, and self published a comic with "no premise let alone story". He sent his portfolio to Weta where Richard Taylor offered him a job, and his first project was to design a statue of Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror show, as well as a gadget studded statue in Wellington to celebrate the New Zealand film industry.

He is now working on a graphic novel of the Dr Grordbort universe, filled with Steampunk style rayguns, moon soldiers, detailed alien breeding pictograms and wildly impractical yet foxy costumes, inspired by the great age of Sci-fi Pulp artwork from the 1920s, 30s and 40s.

Greg is fascinated by the macho idiocy of the hero in science fiction. The heroic attitude of killing anything and everything in sight, especially if it is jeopardising the swooning heroine.

His hero Lord Cockswain is a giant buffoon, but ably managed by the scantily clad Moon Mistress. Further depth of characters are added to the website in the Appraisals of Notable Gits and Buffoons, drawn from 'testimonials' written by a community of fans worldwide:

"I read their testimonial to sort of absorb it, then draw an illustration based on what I think their character looks like and we publish that. Then, I write a brief intro to the character where I kind of take the piss out of them, which is great fun because the whole thing is in jest anyway"

His advice to young comic nerds dreaming of a day when they too can earn a "not shit amount of money" for their doodles:

"I think as long as you have that passion and desire to make stuff then you'll find a way. You've just got to stick with it and fight through any adversity that you might get. And the biggest thing to fight through perhaps is your feeling that other people are doing great stuff, and maybe your stuff doesn't measure up. But you have to go, who cares? Who gives a shit? You just do what you love and put it out there.That you put it out there is probably the biggest thing, and the great thing now is the world has changed massively with the internet. Everyone has this opportunity to get their art or whatever it may be out there in front of the world, and even though it's only in front of a small proportion of it to start with that really didn't exist before. Not in the way it is now. It's very much like the wild west where you can just put stuff out there. It's so easy to make your own website or put your own content up in so many different avenues. My best advice is to do it. Just do stuff."
Listen to advice from Dr Grordbort, 1:40

Dr. Grordborts Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory is due out in January 2008 from Weta Originals / Dark Horse Comics. Watch their marvellous Contrapulatronic Commercial at the Dr Grordbort's site, or at YouTube's Amazing Video Emporium.

As well as being TBI's strategist, Helen Baxter a.k.a. MsBehaviour runs dance-music label TMet Recordings, 3D animation company Mohawk Media and has a fortnightly slot on National Radio called 'Virtual World'.

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24/01/08