Created By Aru Singh
Created By Aru Singh
Created By Aru Singh
March 6th 2021 © Malphunkson™
16th October 2022
GET YA GEEK ON Convention
Happening today in Wellington, New Zealand Our CEO, Aru interviewed the Owner/Organizer,
Amanda on our PlungeCast podcast a few weeks
ago.
Why not check it out and also you can watch the
interview by clicking here.
30th August 2022
Our CEO, Aru traveled to Kerikeri in the Far North on Monday 29th August and met with the Far North Creative Northland branch based at the Turner Centre, Performing Arts & Conference Centre Events Personal and a local Arts & Music Facilitator about the PLUNGE! Pop Culture Convention - Kerikeri event.
An area of the Centre was decided upon and a date chosen next year to hold the event.
As of today, that date is SATURDAT 15th SEPTEMBER 2023!
We at Plunge NZ are very excited to be able to sort this out and begin the actual planning of what this new location's event will look like.
We want to thank Kerikeri for inviting us into their town. We hope we will beneficial to them.
22nd August 2022
We are excited to annouce that we have recieved a grant from Foundation North as part of an arts grant to support our work in Northland with through the devlivery of our PLUNGE! Pop Culture Convention Kerikeri and of course our Whangarei event.
As our PLUNGE! Conventions are run on a volunteer basis by very passionate local artists, creatives and pop culture enthusiasts any financial support towards the running of the events is a huge blessing. And we appreciate it and see it as a acknowledgement of the great work out team has done for the past 4 years and the years to come.
So, from all of us involved in PLUNGE! a HUGE Thank you to Foundation North and to Hinurewa te Hau (Creative Northland) to sending them to us. Also, to our CFO, Jason Read for helping me with crunching the numbers and working through the various forms that helped us recieve the financial support.
7th August 2022
PlungeCast™ Livestream Podcast
Starting with 14th August, we will be doing a regular podcast, PlungeCast as part of our initiaive to raise awareness and talk to local and national and those that work with us in Plunge Studios NZ.
The focus is to get an inside view into the workings of those who are in the Pop Culture genre. This includes fans, collectors, sellers, promotors and most important, the Creatives and Artists themselves.
We will have guest hosts act as interviewers as well as panels.
The live schedule for PlungeCast™ will be the SECOND SUNDAY and FOURTH SUNDAY at 2pm live New Zealand Time every month.
The first inaugaral for PlungeCast will feature, Corto Champoux. A local Artist and Writer of the new comic book, The True North.
10th July 2022
We had a photography from our locally, nationally syndicated newspaper come and take photos at the convention on Saturday 9th July. Then on 10th July Aru got a call from Avina, who has interviewed him before for feedback on the event.
PLUNGE! Pop Culture Convention comes to Whangārei for the fourth year. In the photo are Judy Rogers (left), organiser Aru Singh, and Lynnette Nattrass. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Cosplay fans gather at the PLUNGE! Pop Culture Convention on Saturday. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Northland Plunge Pop Culture convention panned out like a 'well-oiled machine'
11 Jul, 2022 05:00 AM
By
Avina Vidyadharan
Multimedia journalist
(NB: This article was in The Northern Advocate a national syndicated newspaper that is based locally in Whangarei, New Zealand where Plunge Enterprises, NZ is based.)
The PLUNGE! Pop Culture Convention in Whangārei on Saturday attracted a crowd of nearly 200 cosplay fans who went all out on costumes and props.
The turnout was despite the extreme wet weather leading up to the weekend and the circling winter illnesses mixed with Covid-19 in Northland.
Plunge director and convention organiser Aruneshwar Singh said everyone who turned up had a great time.
"It was raining the whole week and that put many people off."
This was the fourth consecutive convention hosted by the Plunge family and Singh said this year was the turning point for the enterprise.
"On Saturday, we realised who our team is. It was well run compared to previous years because each year we figure out what works and what does not.
"We knew our strengths and weaknesses this year, so we improved the things that needed a change and worked better on already efficient things.
"I relaxed this year and did not worry about anything. Everything panned out like a well-oiled machine."
The organisers are now set for the Plunge convention happening for the first time in Kerikeri on February 4 next year.
Singh acknowledged the hard work of team members Eatz Kennedy, Lynette Nattrass, and Jason Read.
Cosplay fans gather at the PLUNGE! Pop Culture Convention on Saturday. Photo / Michael Cunningham
9th July 2022
We had a really nice sunny day, though all week it rained and with the caution in the community made for a low number in turn out at the convention.
However, everyone who attended have given a positive reponse,
7th May 2022
We are excited to announce that we will be putting on a PLUNGE! Cosplay, Art & Pop Culture Convention in Kerikeri, Northland New Zealand on 4th February 2023.
We are excited to be able to work with Creative Northland to take our convention to the Far North Community.
This one will be slightly different to our Whangarei City one as we want to emphasize the vibrant art culture that is active in the Far North.
5th May 2022
We would like to thank everyone who donated to
our recent month long fundraiser through the Boosted NZ online crowdfunding initiative.
You helped us reach our target of NZ$2000.
We will put the funds to some great works that we have planned in support of our local community initiatives such as PLUNGE! Pop Culture Convention. The printing of 'OUR KIDS KOMICS' and the SUNSPOT Pop Culture Magazine in 2023.
Fingers crossed everything goes to plan.
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6th April 2022
After much trial and error, test runs at creating a short 90 second video to promote our new BOOSTED NZ Arts Crowdfunding Campaign, we are now live on the website.
Boosted is Aotearoa’s (New Zealand), only crowdfunding platform dedicated to getting homegrown art off the ground.
We’re a national team of crowdfunding geeks, here to help the artists of Aotearoa grow their own generous giving communities.
Boosted has been blowing up arts projects since aaages ago.
Since Boosted launched in 2013, we’ve helped over 1,000 artistic mates raise a cool, combined $8 million for their projects, nationwide. We run at an 86% success rate (we challenge you to find better… we’ll wait) and we reckon that’s all down to the way we drive this bad boy.
6th March 2022
The last two and a half weeks, Jason (Assistant Manager, Plunge Enterprises) and Aru Singh has been working on a funding application for the 2023 PLUNGE! Pop Culture Convention.
We were asked to expand the convention to the Far North and with that in mind we were approached by an local funding body to apply for one of their funds to help us expand the convention both in Kerikeri and in Whangarei.
If all goes well we will be able to pay for the all the expenses, staff and also some extra costs involved in putting on an event outside our city.
5th February 2022
We have started a GiveSendGo crowdfunding fundraiser and will be working with a New Zealand fundraising platform.
it may take a bit of time to load the site but please bear with them as lots of campaigns have moved onto the crowd-funder overnight.
5th February 2022
We have cancelled our GoFundMe fundraiser.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Here's finger's crossed to an exciting and interesting 2022. We are getting prepared for our 4th annual PLUNGE! Convention already with hopes of being able to put another exciting event. We get better and better with greater support from our community, sponsors and local businesses. We are always grateful for the support.
30th June 2021
This year at PLUNGE! Convention, we will be running a Create A Comic, OKK™ (Our KId's Komics™) initiative where we invite kids from 7-18yrs to participate in creating a 1-2 page comic story told in 6 panels. They will get to make up their own characters in their own art style and draw up it for us to produce a black/white digital collection of their stories.
We will have a writer and a comic artist along with art students to help the kids tell their stories in their choice of style, American Comics, Manga, European, Cartoon or Comic Strips.
We are looking to then later produce a print version of this collection that will be given free to the kids, and also available for purchase both in digital download and in print versions.
29th June 2021
We've have created and updated the events and schedule of events for PLUNGE! convention please click photo.
28th June 2021
We dropped off posters and flyers to our sponsors and some city schools and are hoping to have more out by end of week to other schools.
We are grateful to our partners at Creative Northland for printing posters and flyers for free in various sizes.
June 23rd 2021
I am watching a 3D toy design version of my superhero character based off my actual design and its blowing my mind.
At the moment Incredi-Girl is without a mask in full costume. I can't wait to see her in her red and blue mask design as well! Thanks to the designer I now have two versions and I was only thinking of her just in her mask. .
I can't stop staring at the 6 second video of the figure doing a 360°degrees turn on my messenger screen.
This is due to help from Vaanipriya Diwan setting up the right connections
Its the same feeling I had when the original Kiwi artist on the comic, Mike Payne sent through his manga illustrations of her way back in 2007. See image 5.
And later, Mike Burbeck redid the entire 120+ pages of illustrations of the 6 issue comic story based of the original style incorporating his own into it.
Later, in 2019 local artist, Shane Evans gave her, her new masked look based off my designs as I had decided to update her look to bring her into a new series of comic book series from our own, Plunge Studios, NZ comic book universe, The Plunge Universe aka PlungeVerse
Below is Shane's latest look comic book look of Incredi-Girl. This illustration was done on livestream a couple weeks ago and we put it up on Trade Me to build interest in the our comic and fundraise towards our printing costs.
Also, after talking on livestream last Friday with local, Rico Richard Searle we now have a free mobile puzzle game he has developed specially for our Convention this year.
The second image is my design of Incredi-Girl as a painting on a blank ceramic plate for this year's Quarry Arts Centre 2021 Great Plate Fundraiser.
This is my 3rd Great Plate contribution. Jarred Taylor suggested I do something with comics this year and so, since the below design is my only actual solo individual design attempt (I only draw digitally and did this for last years kids coloring in competitionat PLUNGE!) I decided to paint one instead this year, although giving it a raised glazed look of ceramic glazes.
The plate is almost finished. It needs another coat of paint on background and then a final clean up layer of the main character design.
Incredi-Girl is solely a Whangarei District Love It Here based superhero. I think she may be the first for our city. I could be wrong, but then I am not a New Zealand comic book historian. Maybe Richard Cranenburgh knows?
This 14 years attempt to create a comic book superhero for my then, 4yrs old niece has been a long journey.
Our Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for our comic of Incredi-Girl #1 comic book is at the review stage at Kickstarter website.If all goes well, we will be able to bring her to the world for the first time in print. they bring to our event.
We will also have a limited number for sale at PLUNGE! Comics - Anime & Pop Culture Convention along with posters for sale of the cover art. See 3rd image which is Shane's artwork.
These past 12 months my team of Shane Evans and Jason Read and with assistance from Michelle Watts has helped keep me energized and focused to bring our 3rd event together. See 4th image of 2021 event poster.
Along with our larger team of volunteers and community groups and even Whangarei Girls High School ART Department getting invloved through Volunteering Northland are doing some banner work and bringing student volunteers. This has my staff and I to pull together the final touches needed to put on this year's PLUNGE! Convention.
We have filled all our stalls, having welcomed community groups related to this years theme: Digital Art, Tech, Game & Software Design.
We've also once again had help with prize items from Event Cinemas Whangarei & The Warehouse Whangarei for our cosplay competitions.
This year, we also have Northland Horror joining us as a business stallholder. We hope that attendees won't be too scared by what
The basis for our convention is to showcase stepping stones based off comics book, manga, fan art and doodles on exercise books. Which if given direction, guidance and mentorship with a touch of inspiration can help young people onto a path of creativity that can lead to them finding a career in so many related fields in the future in our community.
My hope is that some young kid attending our events finds inspiration to take that first step towards a career in an arts related field be it in comic books or manga, or even in game development or film and tv.
I can only hope as I can only speak from what I have learned, been taught, and also what I have chosen to learn my self that my enthusiasm will for my medium of comic books will be an inspiration.
My main goal over the next 10 years is to raise awareness and to look for ways to create these opportunities in our community based around pop culture through viable industry. And to inspire others in our community to help build studios in their own chosen art fields that will welcome these up and coming creatives into the fields in our community. So that they won't leave and take the knowledge we instil in them elsewhere due to lack of funding or local opportunities in our Northland community.
I may have lofty goals and ideas, but I know there are so many more in our community who are just looking for inspiration or help to get their own vision started.
The PLUNGE! Convention Facebook paid advert is being placed daily so if you see it please share it on your page. The more people see it the more likely they will show it to some else or tell them its happening on Saturday 10th July, 11am to 4pm at ONEONESIX on 116a Bank Street, Whangarei City, New Zealand.
26th July 2021
This month's blog, The Failure of Current Mainstream American Comics is now online, here.
18th July 2021
We've begun research into a Film Script written by Aruneshwar Singh to turn it into a Graphic Novel. The project is in it's early stages and it won't be out for a while.
But, here's a teaser Cover that Malphunkson designed using two very prominent plants growing in the Fiji Islands, where the story is based.
The hibiscus, a flower of beauty and the sugarcane, an natural sweetener and source of income for the cane farmers and for the islands.
14th July 2021
We are currently finalizing the Incredi-Girl chibi toy figure with stand that a designer a friend of Malphunkson's was able to find to work on.
There were some changes we had to make to so that the figure was proportionate to it's ability to stand as well as for it to be 3D printed to his specific requirements.
Images on left show the latest renditions of the Incredi-Girl toy.
kia orA
welcome
