FREMANTLE features prominently in the latest issue of top-tier American comic book series, Suicide Squad.
And there’s talk of one of the series’ co-authors, who has ties to Applecross, introducing the global franchise’s first indigenous female character.
Fremantle Harbour and the WA Maritime Museum is the setting for a violent opening sequence of Suicide Squad #1, which is practically a reboot of the series.
It sees an army general introducing a new nuclear fleet to media before he’s murdered by members of Suicide Squad; a team of super-crooks reluctantly co-opted into working with the good guys in return for reduced prison sentences.
Suicide Squad #1 introduces readers to a brand new roster of super villains and is written by Melbourne-born comics scribe, Tom Taylor who previously worked for graphic novel publishers, Gestalt which was founded in Applecross.
Laith Tierney, owner of Perth comic shop Chaos Pop, told the Voice that Taylor continues to bring Aussie magic to the American comic book scene.
“We recently heard that Tom will be introducing an Australian indigenous female character to Suicide Squad named Thylacine,” says Tierney.
“Seeing Tom’s name on the covers of both Marvel and DC comic books has earned him the nickname The Daywalker around here,” Tierney laughs.
“The fact he manages to write for both major companies at the same time is comparable to a vampire that can exist in daylight.”
Suicide Squad first appeared in 1959 comic book series The Brave and the Bold.
Harley Quinn
Members include Joker’s love interest Harley Quinn, and Captain Boomerang, who was played by Australian actor Jai Courtney in a recent Suicide Squad film by Hollywood director David Ayer.
The comics can sell up to 50,000 copies each monthly issue, though a spin-off featuring Harley Quinn launched to nearly 100,000 readers two years ago.
That led to her becoming the “fourth pillar” of DC Comic’s line-up, alongside legacy behemoths Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.
Ayer’s film, featuring Margot Robbie, set a new record for an August debut and pulled in $380 million globally for its opening weekend. And that was against a panning from critics over its thin plot.
A sequel is due in 2021.
This isn’t the first time WA has featured in American-based comic books with Marvel’s The Avengers recently travelling to Perth where they complained about the high price of beer.
WITH the rest of the country ablaze, charitable efforts have spread across Perth to help eastern states communities cope with the fires.
Concerts, bake sales, and goods donations have sprung up, while over at Milktooth kids art school in Bayswater the tiny artists are putting up their masterpieces for sale.
The school’s Elizabeth Marruffo and Campbell Whyte have raised $1600 so far, asking people to donate directly to WIRES (the group helping rescue fire-affected wildlife), which then earns them a spot in their January 17 animal art workshops.
Raise funds
Two workshops have now sold out, but works created on the day will also be sold to raise funds on Saturday January 18, and all are invited to come along for a bid from 1pm to 3pm at 67 Whatley Crescent.
Perth Mosque is also organising a cross-cultural event “Perth Unites for Bushfire Relief” in collaboration with Man Up, Haka for Life, Sisterhood Empowerment, the Buddhist Society of WA, Corroboree for Life, Uniting Church and Vincent council down at Hyde Park on January 27, with food stalls, cultural performances and kids’ activities.
Vincent council is offering in-kind support for community fundraising efforts in its parks and facilities by waiving fees and promoting events. Contact 9273 6000 or community.partnerships@vincent.wa.gov.au to apply.
Vincent mayor Emma Cole says “the compassion in our community is so heartening amongst the pain, anguish and depth of loss from the overwhelming and unprecedented bushfires in our country.
“The response from community members, local businesses, community groups and organisations has been simply amazing.
“We are seeing children fundraising through lemonade stalls and cake bakes, so many local businesses donating their proceeds, people coming together to make items for injured and orphaned wildlife and a generosity of personal donations that will have an impact on recovery and support efforts.”
Ready to rock
South of the river, four of Perth’s most loved bands are joining together to raise money for the fires with a concert at the Fremantle Art Centre, Friday, January 31.
John Butler, The Waifs, San Cisco and Stella Donnelly will rock the heritage listed venue, with all proceeds from ticket sales, and merchandising going to WIRES Wildlife Rescue, the NSW RFS and the Vic Bushfire Appeal.
The Waifs’ Josh Cunningham and David Ross Macdonald and past members of the John Butler Trio have had to evacuate their homes in Victoria and New South Wales.
“Anxiety, fear, dread and terror are just a few of the emotions I’ve personally experience over the past weeks,” Cunningham says.
“IRREPLACEABLE” custom surfboards have been stolen from a Mount Lawley couple, along with their car and camping gear.
Hannah and Cameron Etchells’ Landcruiser Troopcarrier named Sandy was stolen from near their Chelmsford Road home December 29.
“We were going on a trip to Esperance. We had the car packed up with so much stuff. We had three boards, all our camping gear… all our food, toiletries, clothes, shoes, [everything] you’d take on a two week road trip,” Ms Etchells said.
One of the rare surfboards is a Danny Hess wooden shortboard from San Francisco. Hess’s light and durable boards are highly sought after, and there’s a long backlog on custom orders.
“I got it made for me when I was studying over [in California]”, says Ms Etchells, who was learning about bushfires in their redwood forests. She had the board made from salvaged redwood so it’s packed with sentimental value.
It’s 5’6” with a pale blue/green resin tint, a teal green arrow thruster fin set-up, and is the “only one of its kind in Australia”. It has Hannah written under the glass on the bottom.
The other board is a 9’4” Pete Dwyer orange longboard, with a 10-inch, bright yellow single fin, and her name also under the glass on the bottom.
The third is a 5’6” white top foam surfboard with a distinctive pineapple print on the bottom, a rare “Ben Gravy special” they brought over to WA.
Ms Etchells says Sandy “is my only car, [and] the boards are irreplaceable”.
They’re so distinct she says “it would be pretty impossible for them to sell them,” and they’re rare enough that even trying to sell them overseas might raise suspicions with a buyer.
Word’s been spread among the surfing and camping community and at surf shops to keep an eye out.
The car’s rego is 1GPG732 and it has a distinctive large black bullbar with a winch, silver visor, silver roof racks and max trax.
Ms Etchells is urging anyone who spots their gear to call police on 131 444 and let her know at hannahcjetchells@gmail.com
She says the outpouring of support from the surfing and camping community has been heartwarming.
It turns out that due to fires, the campsite they planned to visit this week is closed anyway, and Ms Etchells said fierce fires over east “puts everything in perspective. I don’t feel that hard done by, compared to what’s happening over there”.
IN the ’60s parents sometimes left their kids in the car while they nipped into a pub’s beer garden for a drink.
My sister and I would enjoy a real lemon squash and a bag of chips, then fall asleep on the back seat.
Children’s services would be called in today, but luckily you can ditch the back seat nanny and use the Quarter Acre Hotel in Applecross for a more kid-friendly version of taking the kids to your local.
Kids are so welcome there’s a sandpit to play in, and a kids’ menu that includes hummus, turkish bread, grapes and raw vegetables ($8), along with burger and chips ($10).
The pub/eatery’s retro decor is a nostalgic nod to a time when socialising had nothing to do with social media.
The interior has simple, clean modern lines, but the real action is in the garden with its shady trees, whitewashed walls and brightly coloured umbrellas.
When the D’Angers dropped in the place was bustling with young families, hip 20-somethings sipping aperol spritz ($15) and well-heeled retirees.
The nibbles menu is priced to avoid breaking the bank, including marinated sardines on a toasted baguette ($12) and a spiced, crispy squid ($15).
Ravenous after a five-kilometre morning walk, sister-in-law Sally ordered a chicken parmigiana ($28), the best she’d eaten, she said.
“It’s mouthwatering.”
Brother John had a steak sanger ($26), with cheese, caramelised onions, pickles, and a side of particularly good chips.
He was impressed with the tenderness of the meat, and the not-too-chunky bread rather than a roll: “So you can really get your teeth into it.”
I was intrigued by the crispy, spiced cauliflower tacos ($13).
The flat bread was soft and chewy, and the filling a wonderful layering of flavours.
Fresh pomegranate seeds were refreshing on the palate and labna added a pleasant creaminess.
D’Angerous Dave wasn’t as impressed with his haloumi burger ($19).
The bun was more Hungry Jacks, he reckoned: “And the sauce was overpowering and the cheese soft and stodgy.”
But he was blown away by dessert, a Bailey’s tiramisu ($12) which was rich, smooth and creamy.
As was my fantastic lime and vanilla bean panna cotta, with pistachios and stewed peach ($13).
By JENNY D’ANGER
Quarter Acre Hotel 767 Canning Highway, Applecross open 7 days 11.30am–10pm
TALKBACK is a dark and intense play about a fraudulent psychic who discovers she might not be such a fraud after all.
Part of the Blue Room’s Summer Nights and Fringe World, it’s playwright Hannah Cockroft’s debut play.
The Yokine local was hooked on script writing whilst completing an English and cultural studies degree at UWA.
Talkback was initially written as a short five-minute piece for a creative writing workshop at Barking Gecko.
“I was trying to think of a back premise that would grab attention, and was not something you would usually see on stage,” Cockroft says.
With the assistance of dramaturg Jackson Used, the play was rewritten as a 55-minute piece.
It’s set in a radio studio, with moody lighting and disembodied voices, including the troubled Dawn (Verity Jansen), who is looking for answers about her untimely death.
“She’s a 12-year-old ghost who has had her own troubles to deal with, in her past life and her afterlife,” Cockroft says.
Fremantle actor Mararo Wangai (Improvement Club, The Advisors) plays radio station manager Russell.
The station’s psychic Margie (Monica Main) has been fooling audiences with her faked abilities for years, but she’s fallen out of favour and been relegated to the graveyard shift.
Desperate for ratings, she’s scraping the bottom of the barrel just to keep her job.
Then one night memories start knocking and Margie might be closer to the dead than she thinks.
Elise Wilson directs the thought-provoking play, while Isaac Diamond provides the dark and morphing sound to create a crucial counterpoint to the paranormal themes.
Talkback is on January 28 to February 1, at the Blue Room Theatre, James Street, Northbridge.
FRINGE World 2020 kicks off next week (January 17) for four weeks of magic, mayhem, music, circus, cabaret, and more.
Acts are popping up in unusual places this year, and you can pack your bag for a shipboard overnighter for Fringe on the Water.
The Vasco da Gama is set to become the first ever cruise ship to become a Fringe World venue.
The memorable over-night stay includes performances by the all-female YUCK Circus, along with roving performers and dancing into the night.
Festival hub
East Perth’s old girls school will be transformed into the second-largest festival hub with acts performed throughout the historic art deco building.
Fringe’s popular hubs make a return with fresh acts to titillate a diverse range of tastes from the thought-provoking to the surreal and the down right naughty.
There’s also a bumper school-holiday-boredom-busting Fringe Kids line up across a number of hubs, including Russell and Yagan Squares, The Ice Cream Factory and Fringe’s birthplace the Urban Orchard at Perth’s cultural centre.
There’s also jazz at the Ellington Jazz Club, and cutting edge plays at the Blue Room Theatre, along with comedy at The Laugh Resort Comedy Club.
The magic spreads well beyond the city and you can catch acts at Subiaco, Scarborough’s Sunset Veranda, and Kalamunda.
Out at Bassendean things go Vegas with the WonderRealm Festival launch.
And the Chinese New Year is welcomed in the following weekend with acrobatic lion and dragon dancers and more on the Bassie foreshore.
For the full program, or to book go to fringeworld.com.au
FOR near on 100 years Russell Street’s tannery was an industrial hub virtually on the doorstep of Fremantle’s CBD.
It was also the only WA tannery which kept up the tradition of vegetable dyes (wattle bark), right until it closed in 1995/96.
Straight after the buildings were sold off, the original 1854 limestone buildings which pre-dated the tannery and fellmongers were turned into stunning heritage-listed homes, and the 1921 warehouse fronting them into high end apartments.
Funky
Number 4a is a funky one-bedroom warehouse conversion, with a terrific industrial edge, including original massive timber uprights in the living area.
Set in a wall of steel and frosted glass the front door is virtually on the pavement, screened from the road by a wide, heavily vegetated verge.
You literally step into the open-plan kitchen/dining area from the footpath.
Dark grey tiles are complemented by crisp white walls, and the black cupboards, and benches in the kitchen add a classy and dramatic touch.
Almost floor-to-ceiling double white doors next to the kitchen hide the laundry.
The kitchen, although small, is well set out, with an integrated dishwasher and plenty of cupboards, but living this close to the CBD new owners probably won’t be doing much cooking.
But for morning coffee, or somewhere to relax alfresco there’s a pleasant little north-facing courtyard, protected by high walls.
Dark grey, iron-framed timber stairs lead to the second level mezzanine bedroom, with its wall of frosted glass facing onto the street.
One section of the wall is clear glass, giving a view of the lushly planted verge, without those below being able to see in.
There’s a compact modern ensuite, and a bank of floor-to-ceiling, mirror-fronted, built-in-robes.
Accessed through the rear courtyard there’s off-street parking for one car.
But with Fremantle’s CBD, and the South Terrace strip barely five minutes walk away, one car is all you’ll need at this inner-city address.
By JENNY D’ANGER
4/22a Russell St, Fremantle from $459,000 Brad Katnich 0466 900 955 Mark Brophy 0403 382 555 Mark Brophy Real Estate 9335 9800
MARY GRAY is a North Perth resident who, like most of the city, is concerned about climate change and reckons there’s a way all of us – including the Voice – can do their bit to turn things around.
THE City of Vincent has declared a ‘Climate Emergency’ and is to be commended for this first step towards local action to address climate change.
What does this mean? And what are the next steps to encourage and achieve reduced greenhouse gas emissions and to increase carbon sequestration?
There are lots of actions which can be taken by us householders, by local businesses, and by the City of Vincent.
Here is a golden opportunity for the Voice to start a regular page with information on various initiatives, one or two at a time.
A recent survey of all households in our North Perth street included the question: Are you concerned about climate change? 42 out of 45 said yes, and this is 93 per cent of householders.
Many people however, are not sure what they can do, or what they can ask to be done locally by the city.
Adding solar hot water systems and solar panels and sharing the renewable energy with neighbours are obvious initiatives.
Switching to electric vehicles, and driving smaller and white cars rather than big black cars means less energy consumption for air conditioning.
Planting more local native trees and shrubs in our gardens and street verges will increase oxygen production and carbon sequestration and shade to help cool our suburbs.
It also helps provide food and habitat for our native wildlife.
The heat island effect in outer shadeless suburbs is well recognised.
Awareness raising about suitable local native plants and best gardening techniques is needed.
Installation of underground power supported by the City of Vincent would facilitate growth of an increased tree canopy. Notably the City of Subiaco has already achieved this for their whole municipality.
In redevelopments, the City of Vincent should require a much greater proportion of ‘soft’ cover with planting of local native species and lawn and much less use of concrete.
There is too much hard surface in our suburbs adding to local heating.
And so the list of opportunities in the public interest goes on.
There is lots of sustainable development and 100 per cent renewable energy expertise in the community.
It would be most helpful for the Voice to share it and foster it.
The Ed says: Thanks for the suggestion; consider this our first foray.
North Perth’s SCOTT GIBBINGS found the day after a rollicking Pride party had a challenge or two to overcome.
STARTING your day with a hangover is not always a bad thing.
It’s about perspective. The human condition dictates that fulfilment is derived through overcoming challenges.
The hangover presents a novel challenge.
It brings into focus all that is taken for granted in the non-hungover state.
Simple tasks like leaving the apartment complex, or driving a car are re-framed as significant tasks that require concentration, executive functioning.
Low on cognitive reserves, the challenges can stack up. Forget keys when you leave the building and you’re all of a sudden solving another problem that didn’t exist one minute earlier.
I was determined not to let this hangover upset my day.
If I got the things done that I’d planned to do before going all “fast and free” last night, I would actually feel pretty heroic.
So I would borrow Jon’s ute and set off for Butler to pick up a chair I’d committed to buying the day before.
Sharon on Gumtree was selling a 1950’s arm chair designed by T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings. You don’t come across too many other Gibbings.
I’d not heard of T.H. until yesterday, but within a few hours he meant something to me. Interesting how small parcels of information can come your way that elevate themselves to the status of interesting so quickly.
A British-born architect, designer and decorator, he reached some level of notoriety in the US in the 30s and 40s designing houses for the wealthy set.
Sharon was letting the chair go for a fraction of the price of some online antique stockists.
It’s also quite a nice-looking example of mid-century simplicity. Form follows function, clean lines, a good weight about it.
Needing the $275 I’d hard-balled Sharon down to, I went to break a $50 at a cafe.
I’d managed to assemble a cheese toastie for breakfast but it hadn’t done the trick of stopping my stomach feeling sick.
I unconvincingly convinced myself that more food would fix it. A nice brown dog said hello to me while I waited for the egg and bacon muffin to be toasted, and I motionlessly revelled in the knowledge I was soundtracking my day with precision.
A Spotify mix that was inspired by Japanese multi-instrumentalist Shintaro Sakamoto.
I think it was a staffy. They’re always so happy. It must be exhausting. People appreciate their effort though.
One of the first things I did this morning, just as the first waves of self-loathing and regret were washing over me, was happen upon the existence of Japanese lo-fi psych rock. Who knew?
Because I’ve recently grown out of the habit of mindlessly biting into really hot things when I’m feeling vulnerable and in need of something to take the pain away right now, resiliently I walked with my muffin in its paper bag towards Jon’s house.
Thirty metres into my muffin-holding stroll, I apathetically turned to face my fast-approaching attacker whose heavy footsteps were just audible over Shintaro’s harmonica solo.
With all of the agility and self-preservation capacity of an unhatched chicken, I reached out to accept my wallet from the cafe owner who had just served me. Left it on the seat I had waited on.
Nice guy. Has a wonky eye. Which had no bearing on the outcome of that little passage of life. Would it later though? No.
Jon’s the kind of guy you would escape from Mars with. After 15 minutes searching for Matt Damon, you’d be screaming into the ether while he fashioned a space craft out of rocks, all the while cutting exactly zero corners.
I was speaking to him from Brisbane while he remotely opened his gate and garage door and talked me through key and rope finding, drawing on his photo-like mental image of his entire house.
While he did, I accidentally ate some napkin.
Perhaps sensing my inadequacies – transient of course, for I am a real man – Sharon’s husband did all the heavy lifting as the ute was loaded up.
I silently embarrassed myself with my rope tying while he talked just a little too much. He didn’t mention the knots though.
I was in a rush to get back to the city for lunch with Jo who would be getting a 30-minute break from another all-day toothpicks-holding-your-eyelids-open ordeal courtesy of Chartered Accountants Australia.
Butler is f’ing miles away and I was going to be pushing it. It must have been about the Ocean Reef Road freeway exit that I started scanning the cab for my wallet.
There’s a strange thing you do when searching for something.
You’ll leave perhaps the most obvious place the something will be until it’s the very last spot to look, knowing that if it’s not there, then you can be certain that you’re properly screwed.
There’s some solace in being absolutely sure that you’re screwed.
I got out of the ute and looked around Warwick Road; well over half the 40km trip home complete.
It must have fallen out of the car when I stopped at the start of the freeway to check my knots. Great. At least the angst I’d been suffering about the chair flying off the back of the ute had left me.
To the end of the freeway I returned, off ramp, overpass, on ramp. Two things to find.
Finding the correct emergency bay among its analogous cousins proved a not-insurmountable challenge. Yes, it was that one there where I’d shamefully checked my shameful knots while well-tied loads had careered past.
No wallet to be found.
I would head home and perhaps engage in some minor self harming, or maybe get back to cleaning up vomit.
I threw a Hail Mary message to Sharon before that though.
In fact yes, it was on the road in front of her house. No, I can’t disagree Sharon, I am very lucky.
No, she would not accept the remaining $20 from my wallet, I should stop being ridiculous.
The drive home was marked by more perfect songs and more concerns about my knots. They’d dutifully returned. I stopped on the freeway to check again.
Jo was relieved and very understanding.
I got to eat the lunch she made for herself yesterday and left in the fridge for me to take in to her. Some vegetable pattie with a Mexican-inspired salad.
I had to cut the avocado myself though. She would have done it for me if she knew I was going to be eating the salad.
THERE always had been a discreet flow of gossip coursing through the lanes and alleyways around winding Monmouth Street.
The near accident, when Ms Buttle, while riding her mauve coloured bike with the wicker basket, almost crashed into her husband riding peloton style in front, when he stopped to let Ms Chrushin‘s yellow spotted tomcat cross the road.
And, not to forget, `Eyes-On-The -Street Ms Colibee´, who had this insane crush on posties, and just couldn‘t help herself being out, at just the exact moment, when the yellow vested rider of, not a white horse, but one of those humming, buzzing little scooters came riding into her little slice of the street.
But – and this is a big ‘but’, one of those ‘buts’ that are earth shaking (at least where the earth around Monmouth Street is concerned) rumours reached a new and never before seen high, when the blob moved in.
The blob moved into the apartment on the second floor of a nondescript apartment building, an eyesore anyway, if you asked just about anybody, but considered in our current edgy world not too bad in terms of architectural provenance, if only the paint wouldn‘t have been this bleached kind of ochre, which resembled our dried out outback minus kangaroos and gum trees, of course.
He moved in on a Sunday, at around 7 pm, with darkness approaching, the street lights flickering, before the starter finally caught and illuminated the blob, huffing and puffing, while heaving his stuff up the outside stairs of the building, things that he had brought, among all cars in a Holden Kingswood, which had more rust than paint left on its body.
Which couldn‘t be said of the blob, who was extremely colourful, actually quite nice to look at, said Ms Colibee, who lived just across and two to the side from the blob now.
And there was speculation in abundance, why the blob had picked just this neighbourhood to move into.
Was it the fragrant smell of the jacaranda tree out the front lawn of the building, which had been badly pruned a few years back, but was now sproutingblooms again, or was it the escape routes leading from that building, as Mr Kossawa, a retired detective with the WA police force confidently told nearly everyone for days?
Any criminal, he lectured, the first thing a criminal is looking at, when scouting out an opportunity for burglary, theft or murder, are escape routes, multiples of them.
And only then, after successfully determining his chances of escape, will said criminal strike, and strike he will, said Mr Kossawa. Strike he will.
But what really happened, after a while, the rumours subsided, the blob became a part of the neighbourhood and actually, and this is true, apologised, after accidentally bumping into Mr Kalamides on the sidewalk, in quite a friendly way and invited him for tea to make up for the smashed eggs and the squashed tomatoes.
Perth Voice Interactive 