AKA – Discrimination at ‘Homecooked’ 2018 or How Local Creators were Banned from a Local Event Funded by a Local Council
On 2 March 2018 we received an email from Marian Blythe, the new director of the ‘Homecooked Comics Festival’ informing us that we were rejected from their event.
We wrote back expressing disappointment and let her know that we have been creating comics for over 25 years and are active members of the comics community. Of particular frustration was the fact that we had helped the ‘Homecooked Festival’ with their funding efforts yet we were blocked from this very event. We requested a reconsideration.
Marian Blythe was not interested in assisting and refused to reconsider.
(Screen shot below of Antoinette’s Facebook post concerning their rejection email from Marian Blythe)
On 18 March 2018 the ‘Australian Comics Journal’ published a news article promoting ‘Homecooked’ and focused on the director Marian Blythe.
Link: http://australiancomicsjournal.com/wp/home-cooked-comics-festival-meet-the-organisers/
I responded to that article and pointed out various inaccuracies, double standards and discrimination but Comments were closed off for fear my comments would spark “a flamewar on ACJ”. Instead, ‘ACJ’ promised that if I wrote an article about Homecooked they would publish it.
The ‘Homecooked Comics Festival’ was on Sunday 15 April 2018. It was held at the Northcote Town Hall and was funded by the City of Darebin. I wrote the article two days later on 17 April 2018. Although waiting patiently, the ‘ACJ’ has not published my article and the site now appears to have gone into semi-hiatus.
Although months have passed, the issues are not resolved and are likely to recur next year at the 2019 ‘Homecooked’. Discrimination in all its guises needs to be called out, so I’d like to thank Josh Griffiths at ‘Art Whore’ for publishing my article… Read it all, below: