Nicola Scott is an Australian comic book artist working in the American industry. After working for Dark Horse, Image and IDW, she quickly became a fan-favourite working exclusively for DC Entertainment on monthly titles Birds Of Prey, Secret Six, Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Superman and New York Times Bestseller Earth 2.She has recently made the gigantic leap of leaving DC comics to start a creator owned book with Greg Rucka (Gotham Central, Batwoman, Queen & Country, Lazarus and more). The new series is called Black Magick and will be released by Image Comics, debuting in late October 2015.Join Nicola as she details her work and how she began working for the world's biggest comics publishing companies while being based in Sydney, Australia and most interestingly how she has come to leave these behind to focus on creator owned work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brendan McCarthy, a renowned UK comic artist and designer known for his work on Mad Max: Fury Road and 2000 AD's Judge Dredd, shares insights from his impressive 35-year career. He discusses the revolutionary 80s British invasion of U.S. comics and the evolution of storytelling in graphic novels. McCarthy explores cultural identity through his Indian sci-fi comic 'Rogan Gosh' and reflects on the transition from comics to cinema. He candidly addresses the fear of being forgotten and the balance between artistic integrity and mass appeal.

The internet is the 21st century's nervous system and it has made universal surveillance a reality. In the past, even the most repressive authoritarian states would reach a point where it was cheaper to guarantee social stability with schools and hospitals rather than with guns and surveillance devices. But the automation of surveillance has moved this point dramatically. Where the Stasi needed an entire army to surveil one country, East Germany, the NSA and its Five Eyes partners can surveil the whole planet with a single battalion.According to internet freedom advocate Cory Doctorow, it will get worse before it gets better. The Internet of Things creates the potential for everyday devices to be used by spy agencies, criminals and authoritarian states to commit wholesale mischief. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when a Professor of Economics gets his hands on the economic levers of a country in the eye of the financial storm? Yanis Varoufakis' seven month stint as Greece's Minister of Finance took him into the heart of the Eurogroup, the IMF, and the continent's top decision-making bodies. With bluntness and force, he put the case for a different solution to Greece’s ills and accused the country’s creditors of terrorism. Telling Bloomberf “I wouldprefer to cut my arm off" rather than accept a bailout that did not involve debt restructuring, Varoufakis did not make friends among the Eurocrats. Sharing his first-hand view of the global financial system and what is means for ordinary citizens and governments when things go wrong, Yanis Varoufakis will discuss his experience at the intersection of politics and economics in theory and practice.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Keating, visionary, reformer, true believer, rabble rouser, polymath, and our most intriguing prime minister bares his soul to the country's sharpest political interviewer, Kerry O'Brien.Kerry and Paul wrestle with history to produce a tour de force of political wisdom and personal insight that weaves through the Keating years in a unique and compelling way. Building on the transcripts of the must-watch ABC TV event of 2013 - Keating: the Interviews – Kerry has gathered an enormous bank of new material, gleaned during many hours of further conversation with Keating, to create a book that is more forensic and all-encompassing than the very successful TV series. Kerry O'Brien captures the hallmarks of the man - the nimble mind, the wit, the grandeur of vision, the complexity and the stubborn drive for power - as Keating explains the historic events, back room stoushes and moments of drama and pathos that the political world inevitably holds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Fray is the Deputy Editor of The Australian. He was the editor-in-chief and founder of the fact-checking website, PolitiFact Australia and had a long and distinguished career at Fairfax Media, most recently as Editor-in-Chief and publisher of the The Sydney Morning Herald and previously as Editor of The Canberra Times and The Sunday Age.Julia Baird is a journalist, broadcaster and author. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, the Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Monthly and Harper’s Bazaar. She is a regular commentator on television and radio and is the author of Media Tarts: How the Australian press frames female politicians. She is currently writing a biography of Queen Victoria.Chris Kenny is Associate Editor-National Affairs at The Australian and host of the SkyNews Viewpoint program, as well as a regular commentator on national affairs on television, radio and in print. He brings to the task a broad range of top level experience in media, politics and foreign affairs.John Ricketts is the CEO of Significance Systems, an applied AI platform that finds and analyses the narratives that matter in a crowded digital media world. This has application in a wide range of fields from Capital Markets and Development Aid, to Communications, Strategy and Marketing. He was awarded his PHD in Physics at 24 and lived during the 90s in Tokyo, where he pioneered the first social media. Mark Di Stefano is the Political Editor for BuzzFeedOz, who started out in the media by fetching ABC News host Juanita Philips' tea and doing her autocue. After stints reading the news on Triple J and doing TV journalism for the ABC News in Darwin, Mark got lucky and was hired by BuzzFeed. He loves the Internet, coffee and Kendrick Lamar's latest album. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Frank Brennan SJ AO has a longstanding reputation of advocacy in the areas of law, social justice, refugee protection and Aboriginal reconciliation. He is known for his 1998 involvement in the debate surrounding the Wik peoples’ landmark court case. He is a Jesuit priest, professor of law and writer. Brennan was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1995 for services to Aboriginal Australians, particularly as an advocate in the areas of law, social justice and reconciliation. He is highly thought of in the Indigenous communityMalarndirri McCarthy is a Senior Journalist & Presenter at SBS/NITV News and the 2013 winner of the DEADLYs Inaugural Award in Journalism for her breaking story on two Indigenous brothers in Saudi Arabia and in 2013 received two Walkley nominations for her story about a car company advertisement filmed on the culturally significant site of Wave Rock in WA.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laurie Penny is a feminist, journalist and author. Her books include Unspeakable Things (2014),Cybersexism (2013) and Meat Market (2011). She writes and speaks on social justice, pop culture, gender issues and digital politics for numerous news sources including The Guardian, The New York Times, Vice and Salon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tariq Ali is a British-Pakistani political commentator and a prolific writer, journalist and filmmaker. He has been a leading figure of the international left since the 1960s. His books include The Duel: Pakistan on the Flightpath of American Power, The Obama Syndrome and The Extreme Centre: A Warning.Helen Joyce became international editor of The Economist in January 2014 having previously served as International Education Editor and Sao Paulo bureau chief. Before joining The Economist she worked as editor of Plus, an online magazine about maths published by the University of Cambridge, and was founding editor for The Royal Statistical Society's quarterly magazine, Significance.Michael Wesley is a Professor of National Security at the Australian National University. He is currently the Director of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Studies in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the ANU. He also consults extensively for the Australian government.Greg Sheridan (Chair) is The Australian newspaper's foreign editor and is one of Australia's most respected and influential analysts of foreign affairs. He began his journalistic career 30 years ago with The Bulletin, and his coverage of Vietnamese refugee stories in the period after the Vietnam War sparked a lifelong interest in Asia and regional politics. He joined The Australian in 1984 and worked in Beijing, Washington and Canberra before returning to Sydney as foreign editor in 1992. He is the author of several books on Asia and Australia's role in the region. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AC Grayling is a distinguished philosopher notable for his ability to make philosophy relevant to contemporary readers and audiences. He is Master of the New College of the Humanities, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He is associated with the new atheism movement and is sometimes described as the 'Fifth Horseman of New Atheism'. He has written and edited more than 30 books on philosophy and other subjects; among his most recent are The Challenge of Things, Liberty in the Age of Terror, The God Argument and To Set Prometheus Free. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.