My name is Bernard Caleo. I tell stories. Sometimes I do this with comic books and sometimes with performances and sometimes both at the same time.
I write and draw and collaborate on and edit and publish comic books.
I also teach comics at schools, universities and libraries, leading comics classes and workshops.
I talk about comics in the media.
As a performer, I make shows and perform them. Some of these shows are to do with comics, like the two-man superhero show, 'The MM Project' which Bruce Woolley and I have been doing for 20 years. I also like to draw and perform kamishibai, the Japanese storytelling form which can be translated as 'paper theatre'.
Also, I make shows and comics for museums and universities and organisations to help them to get across their information in an imagination-engaging way. In this capacity I have worked for The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Water, Origin, Melbourne Museum, CSIRO and other places.
In 2012, collaborating with filmmaker Daniel Hayward, I made a feature documentary called Graphic Novels! Melbourne! focussing on the long-form comics work of Nicki Greenberg, Mandy Ord, Pat Grant and Bruce Mutard. This project received funding from the City of Melbourne, is supported by Readings bookshops, premiered in November 2012 and Daniel and I presented it at the Angouleme Comics Festival in France, then in Berlin, Hamburg and London, in February 2013.
In 2014:
I am a Creative Fellow at the State Library of Victoria. Alex McDermott and I are collaborating on a historical comic called: The Devil Collects: Faust in Melbourne 1888'.
During term 3 of 2014 I will be an Artist in Schools at Fitzroy High School running a Comics Studio with the students producing work under the umbrella title: 'The Streets of Fitzroy'.
This year I am also working on issues 9 - 12 of the comics pamphlet MONGREL.
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Photograph taken by Nicholas Guerin at the 2013 Angouleme Comics Festival in France.
