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 draw and perform kamishibai, a Japanese storytelling form from the 1930s.
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.
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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, and was supported by Readings bookshops and premiered in November 2012. Daniel and I presented it at the Angouleme Comics Festival in France, then in Berlin, Hamburg and London, in February 2013.
In 2013/2014 I was a Creative Fellow at the State Library of Victoria with historian Alex McDermott. We were collaborating on a historical comic called: The Devil Collects: Faust in Melbourne 1888.
During term 3 of 2014 I was an Arts Victoria 'Artist in Schools' at Fitzroy High School, running a 10 week Comics Studio with years 8, 9 and 10 students.
In 2015:
Alex McDermott and I are continuing work on The Devil Collects: Faust in Melbourne 1888.
In May/June I am travelling to Minamisanriku in Japan with Polyglot Children's Theatre to work with a school there as part of a Polyglot 'Drawbridge' projects, art-making which engages comic book makers as part of the process.
I am making a book of illustrated nonsense poetry for the publisher Finlay Lloyd with the working title Unfug and Bug.
This year I am also working on issues 9 - 12 of the comics pamphlet MONGREL.
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Photograph taken by Tiffany Garvie
