I’ve been keen on Mandy Ord’s work since we were both involved in the Australian underground comic scene of the late 1990s and early 2000s. She shared my love of the dark and the bizarre, and her cool little self-published comic, Wilnot, inspired me greatly in my own work. While I drifted away from the scene a few years ago, Ord continues to draw her darkly witty, autobiographical comics and has just had her first full-length graphic novel published by Finlay Lloyd. It’s entitled Rooftops, and it tells the tale of a night spent out and about in Melbourne with friends, discussing, amongst other topics, the existential nature of coincidences.

Rooftops is a timely follow up to Ord’s previously published works which graced the pages of the Weekend Australian’s Orbit section for years. Now she has moved onto bigger and bolder territory, and her foray into the graphic novel genre has been well received by reviewers around the country, proving that even underground artists can make it big in the fickle world of publishing.

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