Our Story
Mparntwe – Alice Springs sits in the spiritual heart of Australia. It is a desert town surrounded by the most magnificent Country – of waterholes, ridges, clay pans, old river red gums, galahs and perenties. It is also the region of statistically high Indigenous youth crime, incarceration, and low literacy rates. Stick Mob’s storytelling approach and ethos is testament that these stories do not define us, nor do they speak for us.
Stick Mob’s work is a sharp insight into the Australia we live in. Wake up to their vital stories
Jet Nikitina-Li, Director, Watch This Space, Mparntwe-Alice Springs
Stick Mob Studio is the first creative studio in the Northern Territory dedicated to telling and publishing stories from emerging First Nations storytellers. Seraphina and Alyssa are the first female Indigenous graphic novelists to be published in Australia.
Stick Mob met in middle school. Wrote and illustrated our first graphic on the weekends whilst finishing high school. We published our first graphic novels in 2021 with the support of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF), under the mentorship of Wendy Cowan, Wolfgang Bylsma, and Yawuru graphic novelist, Brenton Ezra McKenna.
Stick Mob’s graphic novels are a radical engagement with daily life in Mparntwe-Alice Springs. Their storytelling brings the ancient right up to the contemporary.
Tamara Whyte, CEO, ICTV
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2025 – ‘Rainbow Serpent’ by Alyssa Mason was published in a French secondary education publication, Shine Bright 2de. Nathan (Editis Group)
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2025 – Alyssa Mason talking at Parrtjima with Festival Director, Rhoda Roberts and Emrhan Tjapanangka Sultan about why their art practice is more than a representation of reality.
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2024 – Alyssa Mason MCing a youth panel at Arts NT Meeting of Arts Professionals (MAP) Conference – Empower. Connect. Enrich.
Speaking proudly with young dynamic creatives in the NT. Alyssa feeling the fear of public speaking and doing it!
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2024 – ICTV media cadets interview Seraphina Newberry in the lead up to our exhibition, Portals at Watch This Space Gallery.
In partnership with Red Hot Arts Project Seed and the Desert Festival
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2023 – Stick Mob with our mentors at Oz Comic Con – Wolfgang Bylsma (Editor-in-Chief, Comics on Country), Brenton Eszra. McKenna (Yawuru graphic novelist based in Broome, WA)
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2021 – Launch of Stick Mob’s first graphic novels at Desert Knowledge Australia (DKA) with Arrernte Pertame Mirning singer songwriter, Catherine Satour and Arrernte Elder-In-Residence – the late and much missed – Harold James Furber.
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2020 – Early days. Stick Mob’s first comic book writing retreat in Boorloo-Perth, WA
Supported by the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF)
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2019 – The deadly comic crew – Wolfgang (Gestalt Publishing), Brenton E. McKenna (Ubby’s Underdogs and Hairy Holes) Lauren, Wendy, Declan, Seraphina, Alyssa
Sharing ideas and story plots at the start of the writing process.
BACKSTORY
DECLAN’S STORY
The first panel shows me presenting first few pages of my graphic novel to my humanities teacher, Wendy Cowan. I was nervous because my English teacher said that it wasn’t ‘real’ English. Wendy was impressed and asked me to show my work to the students in my class – that sparked a chain reaction — suddenly, other students started working with me on the story, a science fiction–cultural tale about the Central Australian inland sea after visiting Rungutjirpa-Simpson Gap with Central Land Council (CLC) Indigenous Rangers and a geologist.
The second panel shows me struggling at school — trying to keep up, as I hadn’t yet been diagnosed with dyslexia.
The third panel shows me sharing my passion for storytelling with others under the mentorship of Wolfgang Blysma, Editor with Comics on Country and Yawuru graphic novelist, Brenton E. McKennna.
This story, which began when I was in Year 8 was published in 2021. Today, I’m in my last year of animation at Griffith University, I co-direct Stick Mob Studio with Wendy Cowan. Mixed Feelings volume 2 was published and celebrated at the 2025 Perth Comic Arts Festival, with plans in place for book 3.
My passion for creating graphic novels takes me to places I never thought possible.
wendy’S STORY
While teaching English at a public middle school in Central Australia, I was nudged by Akngwelye — the Arrernte Wild Dog of Alice Springs — on whose Country the school was situated – to include their stories in my teaching and learning plans.
I persuaded the school to invest in working with Traditional Owners and a NT geologist to visit cultural and geological sites of significance around Mparntwe-Alice Springs.
It was through hearing stories of fossilised ripple rocks and significant cultural stories that Declan first showed me the beginnings of his graphic novel.
This Learning-with Arrernte Country program showed an increase in student attendance and engagement by all students in the class. At the end of the semester while presenting class data to the principal to be told that the school would not continue to support this program. This led me to ask questions of the Western theories and practices that sustain deficit data and practices. As a group of creators we regrouped and worked on storytelling projects on the weekends. Eight years later we are working on our third graphic novels with amazing mentors as well as running comic making workshops locally and nationally.
Seraphina’S STORY
The first panel shows the range of art that Stick Mob creatives do – from graphic novels to large scale artworks and exhibitions. I came from a strong line of Pitjantjatjara artists. My grandfather Yannima Tommy Watson (c. 1935-2017) was a senior APY Lands painter.
In 2017, I was one of the watercolour artists on Declan’s first fraphic novel. I painted a lot of giant trilobites which populated the ‘Larapinta Sea’, which covered central Australia during the Ordovician period, approximately 480 to 440 million years ago.
In 2020, I started my own graphic novel, Exo-Dimensions.
Alyssa’S STORY
The first panel shows me as a toddler, drawing while listening to my Nanna’s stories about growing up on a pastoral station in Queensland. Nanna was my mum’s mum. She showed me her drawings of flowers and horses from the country she grew up on. Nanna’s stories — and her drawing books — were my first inspiration.
I was a quiet student at school. I spent hours reading Japanese manga books in the Alice Springs Town Library. When I got home, I drew characters inspired by what I read. Over the years I have learnt to adapt my interest in Japanese Manga art into my own style.
In 2019 and 2020, I spent almost every weekend working with Declan, Wendy, and Seraphina, writing and illustrating our first graphic novels. It takes me about two years to complete a 40-plus-page graphic novel. The process tests my passion and endurance!
Over the years I have learnt to use Procreate and Clip Studio Pro.
