Keeping Up With The Kids

Last week I led my first ever comicbook workshops for kids. It was at a school in Lewisham which was taking part in a borough-wide summer school project type thing. The kids did two activities a day, including, Bollywood dancing, Hockey, cooking, film making and "Manga and Illustration". I don't know anything about Manga so that went pretty much straight out the window. Instead, I did a load of activities with them that I stole from Jim Medway and a load of other resources that I found through his blog. Very helpful (The card characters game I actually played with some mates a few nights ago, it's incredibly addictive. Will post the results of that sometime).
By the end of it all, they each had made their own 8-page mini comic with a hand made cover.

I'm really hoping for more chances to do comicbook workshops in the future, it was good fun and there's a million things I know I could have done different or better.

Hopefully some of them will be selling their wares at The Camden Comics Stall in a couple of years time.

I'm gonna post this little teaser image thing wot I got off Jake Harold. Jake is collaborating with Dan Lester on a new Junkies In Space series. For those not in the know, Junkies In Space is one of the regular stories that appears in Dan's, Monkeys Might Puke series. The upcoming Monkeys Might Puke #8 is a guest artist issue, with Dan writing a load of strips for others to draw (I've done Gene Wilder's Masturbation Masterclass). Jake's been given the mighty job of drawing that issue's installment of Junkies In Space which will be followed up later in the year with their new Junkies In Space series. Awesome.

Be Vigilant

Off to Caption this weekend. I always look forwards to Caption. It's everything I like about conventions without all the stuff I dislike. Basically, someone else sells your comics while you drink beer, draw and do stuff.
And in a first for me, I'll have three new comics out for this event, none of them TFTF.
There's The Dan Lester Mysteries (the most awesome comic of the year), Weekend Friends, a diary comic collaboration with Sean Azzopardi, Oli Smith and that Dan Lester again. I'll also have a new, full colour, 8-page Curtis and Terrorist mini-comic with individual, handmade covers.
Not all the material in it is new, some of it's the same strips from the original C&T giveaway mini-comics but in colour and drawn better.

BoomBoomBlahBlah

I got roped into going to a mate's band's gig the other night. We were allowed to sell our comics alongside the band's and supporting band's CD's though. I didn't think we'd sell jack-shit so took the bare minimum with me: a few copies of each TFTF comic and a small selection of comics from The Camden Stall. Even when we used to do our Modern Monstrosity Monthly nights at Inigo in Clapham Junction, there wasn't really an overwhelming interest in the comics we'd sell there. At this gig though, we sold out of everything in a couple of hours. Hopefully they're going to make it a monthly event. Live music and comics go well together.

So, yea anyway, here's some pictures...

Camden Stall sketches by Azzopardi, Lester and Me.

A panel from the forthcoming BLOC with Oli Smith

New Low Energy Day flyer!