June Comics Challenge: SOUND FX COMICS!

For this month’s Comic Challenge we are looking at SOUND EFFECTS in comics, and to talk us through it we’ve got this fantastic strip, produced exclusively for Comics Club by Louie Stowell and Freya Harrison!

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Here are a couple of ideas for activities you can try with your Comics Club groups, working from that fantastic how-to:

  1. NOISY COMICS! Everyone has to create a short comic – about whatever they like, but with the proviso that it must contain at least one sound effect in EVERY PANEL.
  2. WHAT’S THAT SOUND? Come up with a short list of events which would create a loud noise – something exploding, someone shooting a laser, whatever you like – and then everyone has to pick one and draw a comic about it. You can come up with a few ideas for NOISY EVENTS yourself, or get the group to brainstorm some! Here are some Neill came up with earlier:

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Encourage the kids to have a go at thinking what sound each would make – everyone have a go at making the noise! And then think how you’d translate that noise into a sound effect: firstly, how would you ‘spell’ it, and also how would you DRAW it? What kind of letters and shapes would you use?

3. WHAT’S THAT SOUND? (SUPER WEIRD VARIANT) – depending on how everyone got on with the above exercise, have a go at thinking up some EVEN WEIRDER events. Go super dtrange / conceptual – really challenge the kids with ‘how on earth would I even put that on paper?’. Again, here are some Neill came up with earlier, to get you started:

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We’d love to see the comics you come up with! As ever, feel free to share stuff with us at @ComicsClubBlog on twitter!

Huge thanks to Louie and Freya for providing our excellent Sound FX comic! Louie is the writer and Freya one of the main illustrators who created Usborne’s fantastic book Write and Draw Your Own Comics, which is one of our top recommendations for getting kids making comics!

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Louie is a writer and editor, check out her twitter for news about her projects, at @louiestowell!

And you can find more of Freya’s amazing work at freyaillustration.co.uk!

 

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Comics Awards For Kids!

If you’re running a group using comics with kids, a great way to find good new comics for them to read – and to get them actively engaged with thinking and talking about those comics critically – is to get involved with one of the comics awards programmes that involve young people in their judging process. There are couple of these in the UK that you might want to check out, for instance…

The Excelsior Award 

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The Excelsior Award is the only nationwide book award for graphic novels and manga – where kids aged 11-16 decide the winner by rating each book as they read it! Eight graphic novels are selected for the shortlist and it now attracts over two hundred and fifty schools and public libraries from all over the UK and Ireland! The overall goal of this scheme is to encourage reading amongst teenagers. However, its secondary target is to raise the profile of graphic novels and manga amongst school librarians and teachers. This storytelling medium has been a largely underused resource within education for many years. The Excelsior Award attempts to highlight some of the amazing books that are out there – books that fully deserve to be in our school libraries alongside regular fiction!

There is also the Excelsior Award Jr, for kids aged 8-11: http://www.excelsiorawardjunior.co.uk/ 

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If you’d like to get your group involved in the Excelsior Award process, you can find out more information here: http://www.excelsioraward.co.uk/info.html – and about the Excelsior Award Jr here: http://www.excelsiorawardjunior.co.uk/info.html

 

The Young People’s Comic Award

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Organised as part of the British Comic Awards, the Young People’s Comic Award is judged by young people and aims to celebrate the best in comics aimed at, and suitable for, a young audience. You can find a list of winners and nominees from previous years here: http://britishcomicawards.com/

 

And here’s a great video about the 2016 awards:

Judging is carried out by reading groups from schools, public libraries and Scouts and guides troops. If you’d like to get your group involved, you can find out more about how to get involved at the BCAs site, here: http://britishcomicawards.com/awards/young-peoples-comic-award/

 

 

 

Comic Club Spotlight with Ellie Egleton

Ellie Egleton tells Hannah Sackett all about her experience of running a comic club.

Can you tell me about the comic club you ran at your old school? What did you do in a typical session? I am currently preparing for my postgraduate teacher training course and so for work experience I returned to my secondary school as a teaching assistant. I really enjoyed the work and so I asked if I could please organise an after-school Comic Book Club which I was kindly allowed to do.

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Every Friday I had a group of students, ranging from 11-15 years old, come to my Comic Book Club! It was great to see a real mix of boys and girls! The activities varied from week to week but the basic idea behind the club was to give the students a starting point where they can jump into reading comics. I have found that with the volumes and volumes of comic books published, it is often difficult to know where to start reading. So, I would prepare a PowerPoint showcasing a particular character such as Spider-Man or the Avengers (usually characters who the students requested) and give them an introduction into the character’s history and recommended my favourite stories. To finish we would have a fun quiz based on the character and I would give out comic books as prizes!

We threw a Batman murder mystery party where the Joker had been “killed” and the students each had a part to play to work out who had committed the crime. My Dad also came in as a guest speaker a few times to show the students some cool comic booksranging from classic back issues to first appearances and issue ones. We also had weeks where I would help the kids create their own comic books and they wrote and drew some amazing things!

We all had a great time geeking out at Comic Book Club! All of my PowerPoint slides have been posted at http://thamesmeadcomicbookclub.blogspot.co.uk/ , a blog I made for the kids to refer back to and to help those interested in starting their own comic book club!

Did club members have a favourite activity? I think that the comic book quizzes were very popular! The kids had the choice whether they wanted to work on their own or in a team and there was certainly some friendly competition! I think that the students also really enjoyed leading the session. We would often discuss what they were reading or creating and so Comic Book Club members became a close friendship group which was nice as I’m not sure if the students would have had a chance to interact with one another outside of the club. Sometimes the kids would create their own PowerPoints to showcase the characters that they loved reading!fig-06


Can you tell me about the research you’re doing at the moment? I am currently conducting research for my dissertation which is to investigate how comic books can be used in the classroom to help students’ with their ongoing identity development! It has been great interviewing teachers about how they might incorporate comic books into class and running activities with students to see how they may relate to characters such as Spider-Gwen and Ms Marvel! I am also organising activities where the students can create their own comic books all about their identity in order to explore what is important to them and what makes them who they are! I think that comic books can be very useful in the classroom as resources which students can relate to and be creative with! My dissertation project is due in April and so I look forward to concluding the research!

In addition to all this, you also find time to make a web comic! Haha yes! When I was at school I wrote an all-ages book called Classified Files of a Superhero which I am now lucky enough to be making into a graphic novel! Classified Files of a Superhero had a very small print run, only 100 copies, which went to family, friends and a few book shops. Now, the graphic novel is being published page by page over at http://powerpunchbootcamp.tumblr.com/  featuring art by Kurt Wood (@kurtwooddotcom) and Alejandro Rosado (@aleroart).

Power Punch Boot Camp is a place for future heroes, world domination and pancakes and is absolutely my childhood dream come true! I loved showing the Comic Book Club kids the process behind making the comic and I hope that it has inspired them to carry on creating!

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Which comics should we be reading right now? This is a very tricky question as there are so many great comic books out there right now! Recently, I have really enjoyed reading Gwenpool! I think it is such a quirky, fun comic book and I really like the character! I think that the DC Comics’ Rebirth range is also a great place to either start or continue reading comics! I’ve been particularly enjoying Green Arrow, Nightwing and Titans! I am also super excited for Marvel’s new Jean Grey ongoing series and so, as a big fan of the character, I always recommend classic X-Men stories including the Dark Phoenix Saga, Phoenix Endsong and X-Men Origins Jean Grey #1! They’re some of my favourite ever comic books!


What are your plans for the coming year? I’m currently counting down the days until I graduate from the University of Surrey! I am looking forward to spending time in Florida over the summer at Disney and starting my teacher training in September. I also have plans to contact publishers with the Power Punch Boot Camp graphic novel and so I am keeping my fingers crossed for that one!

Many thanks to Ellie for finding the time to talk to us – we’re looking forward to hearing more about her research and wish her all the best with her PGCE and her graphic novel!

May Comics Challenge – Star In A Comic!

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For this month’s Comics Challenge we’re joining in with an awesome competition currently being run by The Phoenix, which gives YOU the chance to create a new character and then have that character appear in a brand new four-part series in the Phoenix, illustrated by ME!

For our challenge we’re going to take the idea of Starring in a Comic and run with it, giving you some tips and ideas for making some…

Comics Challenge - COMICS STARRING YOU 1Comics Challenge - COMICS STARRING YOU 2Once you’ve come up with your characters, why not enter them in the competition, and if you win, you could see them appearing in the Phoenix? Here’s all the details:

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…or head over to @phoenixcomicuk on twitter to find out more!

If you’d like to have a go at this activity with your comics club group or class, you can download this activity as a PDF worksheet, here!

Good luck!

 

April Comics Challenge: LET’S ALL DRAW UNICORNS with Sarah McIntyre!

For our April comics challenge, we’re joining in with a fun challenge set by the inimitable Sarah McIntyre! Sarah is currently the writer-and-illustrator-in-residence at Booktrust, and they are running a fantastic competition called Pictures First where you can make a drawing and then have that drawing turned into a short story or poem by a Famous Writer Person! And you can enter this competition in the funnest way imaginable… by DRAWING UNICORNS.

You can read all about the competition over on Booktrust’s blog! Here Sarah shows step-by-step how to draw her character Dumpling the Unicorn:

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And here’s Sarah explaining what she wants to see in your drawings!

I don’t just want to see ordinary pretty pictures of a unicorn with flowers and rainbows. Your picture needs to spark a story, and you have to give the writer lots of visual clues, interesting and unusual unexplained details they can use to inspire their story. And there needs to be some DRAMA, your unicorn is in some sort of peril, or caught up in a situation that makes the viewer think, HEY WAIT, WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??

 

This can be anything from danger (hanging off a ledge on Mt Everest, battling in a fighter jet) to embarrassment (suddenly appearing in front of the class in only polka-dot knickers, farting in a lift).

 

The people who win the competition will be thinking of several things:

  • WHERE is your unicorn? Is it deep-sea diving? At a chip shop? On Mars?
  • What’s it standing on? Concrete? Lava? Moon craters? Broken crockery? Or is it falling from some great height?
  • How big is your unicorn? Is it tiny enough to live in a matchbox? The size of a pony? Or enormous like Godzilla? How can you show that in the picture?
  • Mood? Different colours can influence the mood of your picture. A yellow background might make it look cheerful and sunny – or possibly toxic. A spotch of red or hot pink can make something stand out so we notice it.

  • Is your unicorn wearing anything? It might be wearing anything from basic bows or a horse blanket to a full Marie Antoinette costume or a sparkly disco suit. It’s mane and tail might be styled. Or not.
  • Who else? Are there other characters in the picture? A group of elves in a forest will suggest a very different setting to, say, a group of school children on a football pitch, workers on a construction site, or a Jurassic lake full of dinosaurs.
  • Expression? Does your unicorn look angry? Embarrassed? Worried? Over-caffeinated? Strangely chilled out, considering the dire circumstances?

 

Head on over to Booktrust to find out how to enter this fantastic competition! And if you’re on twitter, be sure to tweet pictures of your drawings to @Booktrust with the hashtag #DumplingTheUnicorn!

Top Tips for Making Comics!

There is, of course, a lot to be said about the art and theory of making comics – indeed, some people have written whole books on the subject – but on the other hand, there isn’t. If you’re working with kids who are just starting out, there are a couple of incredibly simple tips that will do a lot to help make their comics clear and readable. And these are:

how-to-make-legibile-comics-2 This is the big one! It’s worth restating over and over again, at the start of every session if needs be.

To go a step further, it’s good to encourage the kids to think about what the characters are going to be saying as they plan the panels, to ensure there’ll be plenty of room and to make sure that reading order flows nicely, and avoids the following kinds of confusion:

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Also:

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While we’re on lettering: you don’t want to be too prescriptive necessarily, but I find it can be helpful to think about HOW the lettering’s going to look – the joined-up cursive script that kids are dutifully practising in other lessons may not be the best fit for making readable comics. Or in other words:

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AND FINALLY: all panel layouts and ways of combining images as a sequential narrative are of course valid: but again, just when you’re starting out it may be helpful to reinforce the message to stick to clearly defined panel borders with, crucially, a gap between them.

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That’s it! Once more, the first one’s the biggie: if you want to pick one thing to focus on, let that be it.

(These strips feature Professor Panels of How To Make Awesome Comics, appearing here by courtesy of The Phoenix.)  

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March Comics Challenge: COMICS JAMS!

A great way to get kids started writing and drawing their own comics is to make it into a fun game, and one great way to do that is with Comics Jams!

What is a Comics Jam, I hear you ask? Let’s find out!

 

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This activity can be huge amounts of fun, and serves as a great Creative Icebreaker to get groups writing and drawing. And can lead to all kinds of unexpected and hilarious results. Here is a personal favourite, from one of Neill’s Comics Club groups in Oxford: the strange and slightly heartbreaking tale of Mr Chip, and his adventures in the world of dating…

 

The wonderful writer and illustrator Sarah McIntyre has lots more excellent advice about making comics jams – check out her blog post on the subject!

If you’d like to use this activity in your own classes or groups, you can get the whole thing as an activity sheet by just clicking on the following images:

Or you can download as a PDF, here!

We’d love to see what you come up with – please send your own pictures and comics to info@comicsclub.blog, or tweet them at us at @ComicsClubBLOG – we’ll be sharing some of the best!

 

 

Comic Swap!

Has your comic club made a comic? Why not get involved in the new Comic Swap run by Hannah Sackett and Lydia Wysocki, with Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books

Hannah and Lydia tell us how it works…

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Comic Swap helps groups of children share comics they’ve made. Our first swap is now open!

How it works:
  • You, as the adult responsible for a children’s comics-making group, send 6 copies of your comic to us at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books.
  • We add one copy of your comic to the Comic Swap library at Seven Stories.
  • We shuffle the comics sent to us by the groups taking part in the swap.
  • You wait excitedly by the letterbox to receive 5 comics made by other comic swap groups.
  • You read your new comics!

The closing date for emailed permission forms is Friday 7th April 2017.
The closing date for posted comics to arrive at Seven Stories is Friday 14th April 2017.
Swapped comics will be posted out in May 2017.

Each comics swap group must be formed of multiple children and at least one responsible adult. Please do not send us any money: your group pays postage costs to send your comics to us, then we pay the postage to send you 5 new comics made by other groups.

Visit our blog for full details of how to get involved: https://comicswap.wordpress.com/about/

Don’t worry if you don’t have a comic to swap this time round – there will be more Comic Swaps to come, so start making those comics now!

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CHALLENGE ACCEPTED: Creating Characters!

Have you had a go at our February Comics Challenge yet? Lots of fine people have, taking Jamie Smart‘s top-notch tips and creating all sorts of strange and remarkable characters. Let’s have a look!

First, here are some of the amazing creations from Neill’s Comics Club group at The Story Museum in Oxford:

DJ DUCK, by Morrigan!

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The **CATEGORICALLY NOT CUTE** Floating tozbot, by Sabeen!

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The frankly extraordinary MR DEPRESSED LATTE MAN, by Eliza!

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The (extremely positive) FLYING MAGIC CLOUD SHEEP, by Jack!

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The (adorable) GINGERBREAD BOY, by Freddie!

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The (angry) Ballet Pig MR BALLA ANGRY, by Libby:

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…and lots more! (Sorry to everyone I didn’t get a photo for!)

It was great seeing other people join in on twitter, too:

Once you’ve created a character, of course, the fun part is making up a whole story about them! Neill’s usual starting point for story structure looks like this:

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But in honour of Jamie’s work, this time we tried a variant, which looked a bit more like this:

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…and which led to some HIGHLY ENTERTAINING results:

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(AMAZING. I do love a story with a moral, apart from anything else.)

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(HARROWING).

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(MACHO APPLEJUICE)

…anyway, why not try this out yourself? you can find Jamie’s activity sheet as a download here, and a stack of blank comics pages right here. Let us know how you get on!

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Comic Club Spotlight with Dundee Comics Creative Space

This month we head to Dundee – birthplace of The Beano, The Dandy and many, many more comics. Damon Herd tells Hannah Sackett all about the brilliant Comic Clubs running at the Dundee Comics Creative Space.

Name of your Comic Club: Comics Club at Dundee Comics Creative Space

Where do you meet and how often? We meet every week in our own dedicated space in The Vision Building in Dundee. Tuesdays from 4.30-6.30pm for 10-13 year olds and every Wednesday from 4.30-6.30pm for 14-17 year olds. We also do outreach workshops at local schools and community groups.

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Average number of members: 15-20

How long have you been running? Since March 1st 2016

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Tell us about your club: DCCS is a social enterprise and studio project set up by the University of Dundee with funding from the The Rank Foundation. The aim is to provide educational workshops and to encourage creative learning through comics. Ink Pot, our studio, is filled with comics artists, many of whom are graduates of the comics courses atthe University and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design here in Dundee. The Ink Pot artists facilitate our workshops.

Most weeks we will do an exercise to learn a bit about comics but there will always be free drawing time. Sometimes we are working towards a publication, such as our anthology Tales From Dundee & Beyond, which was launched at Dundee Literary Festival last October. The Comics Clubbers also put together 8-page zine-style comics of their own work for the festival. Some of them became super entrepreneurs, handing out flyers and encouraging people to buy their comics! We also had an exhibition of comics in Dundee last year and the children’s comics were included in that too. Our connection with the University means we are able to get some great guests, such as Will Morris and Cam Kennedy. Dave Gibbons is our patron and did a workshop and portfolio review here when we first opened.

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Do you have a comic club activity you’d like to share: We love to start our workshops with warm up exercises and the favourite, by a long way, is consequences (or exquisite corpse), which always has everyone in stitches when the wacky characters are revealed at the end.

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Which comics should we be reading right now? Tales From Dundee and Beyond: Comics Club Comic Strips Volume 1. The anthology of strips by the young people in our workshops from the first six months of Comics Club – available from our website! The characters on the cover were designed for us by Glasgow-based artist Letty Wilson, who is a graduate of the Comics Masters at the University of Dundee. The Beano is still a favourite with our comics clubbers, and there is usually a Marvel/DC argument going on among some of them. Anything with a pug in it would be a big hit too. We looked at Lumberjanes a few weeks ago and that was popular, everyone started running round shouting ‘What the junk?’ Personally, I really like The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Love and Rockets and anything by Julia Gfrörer.

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What are your plans for the coming year? More of everything. More Comics Clubs, more anthology comics, more exhibitions, more guests, and more collaborations with other groups.

Where can we find out more? Here at our website. We also have a mailing list if folks want to be kept up to date with all things DCCS: http://eepurl.com/ct8XFn

Many thanks to Damon and to the members of the Comic Clubs for sharing their work!