Comics For Christmas!

(Image courtesy The Etherington Brothers)

The festive season is (nearly? sort of?) upon us, and so I thought I'd provide a few suggestions for Christmas Present Ideas for Kids Who Love Comics! DISCLAIMER: a couple of these will involve MY comics. (This is my blog? Turkeys are expensive? Look, let's just get through this.)

Because Comics, as we all know, are the GREATEST GIFT OF ALL.

1) The Phoenix

The Phoenix have some great Christmas-present-suitable subscription offers at the moment - I particularly like the "Book Plus a Sub" deals. So you could, for example, get a copy of HOW TO MAKE AWESOME COMICS to enjoy over the holiday period, and then an awesome comic sent direct to your house, every week thereafter. It's the gift that keeps on giving!

2) Sketched books!

For a more personalised present, you can get signed and personalised copies of my books, HOW TO MAKE AWESOME COMICS and MO-BOT HIGH, direct from my web shop! Including custom sketches, done just for you! http://neillcameron.bigcartel.com/

(Also there, a few copies of me and Adam Murphy's collabocomic THE CURSE OF BARRY STARKEY. Very limited stock, left over from Thought Bubble! Be the coolest person in your non-specific local area!) 

3) MORE sketched books! 

Lots of other Phoenixy creators have their own webstores, too, where you can get personalised copies of their books and also check out their other works! For example:

• for anyone who loves James Turner's STAR CAT (which, surely, must be everyone), why not check out his completely hilarious BEAVER & STEVE collections. My son's new favourite, hugely recommended! http://eruditebaboon.bigcartel.com/

• for fans of Adam Murphy's CORPSE TALK, you can get signed & personalised books, Custom Corpse Sketches, and more, from his store: http://adammurphy.storenvy.com/

• for fans of TAMSIN AND THE DEEP (which had BETTER be everyone), go to the incredible Kate Brown's store for prints and original art: http://autojoy.storenvy.com/products

Look, you can even buy the complete set of originals for EMILIE'S TURN, the ballet strip we did! Aaaargh that would be the greatest present ever.

• those exuberant Etherington Brothers have a store filled with their books as well as prints and sketchbooks stuffed full of Lorenzo's mind-meltingly gorgeous artwork. http://www.comicsboutique.blogspot.co.uk/

• Signed books, prints, posters and original cartoons from the gorgeous Gary Northfield, here: http://garynorthfield.bigcartel.com/ 

...and that's just a few. I've left so many out, and apologies for that, but you get the idea. Pick a creator, head over to their site and see if they have a store there, it can be a great way of getting uniquely cool swag and supporting your favourite artists at this time of year!

4) MORE Awesome Comics

There are so many great comics for kids being produced at the moment - I wanted to update my last post on the subject about five minutes after finishing it, but in the meantime why not check out some of these great comics? 

• DUNGEON FUN, by Colin Bell and Neil Slorance - I've ranted about this many times before - hugest possible recommendation, particularly for kids who love the kind of stuff in The Phoenix, or just Stuff That Is Awesome generally. You can order direct from publisher Dogooder Comics, here: http://dogoodercomics.bigcartel.com/

• NIGHT POST by Benjamin Read and Laura Trinder - this utterly gorgeous, lavish, fantastic hardback is available from selected fine comics shops - for instance, the marvellous Page 45. (Who also sell a bunch of other great kids' comics, so go nuts.)

One more Christmas-themed message while I'm here! I'll be doing a couple of festive live events in Oxford over the next couple of weeks, specifically:

• Saturday 13 December, 11am - Waterstones, Broad St - live HOW TO MAKE AWESOME COMICS fun! The idea is I'm going to to a kind of live version of my usual festive Santa-themed drawing challenge, expressing the Spirit of Awesomeness in Santa form. How many bizarre and ridiculous Santas can I draw in an hour? Come along and let's find out together! Also signing books, doing sketches for people, all that good stuff.
• Tuesday 16 December, The Story Museum, Pembroke St - NEILL CAMERON'S CHRISTMAS CARTOON - a special one-day course in which I will be teaching participants to draw ridiculous robot and dinosaur-themed Santas of their own, and making cards and comics with the results. Booking and details here!

Festive advertorial ends! Thank you for your time. Back to drawing amusing pictures of Parks and Recreation characters, tomorrow!

HEY: Let's Get Everyone Making Comics!

I recently had the opportunity to work on a really fun little project for Booktrust's wonderful Letterbox Club project, a scheme which sends packages of books to children in care all over the UK. Included in their next pack will be a little poster / comic we made, encouraging the kids to have a go at a spot of writing and drawing for themselves. Here's a peek!

SPACE PANDAS! #SPACEPANDAS

Meanwhile in a different part of the age spectrum, I'm really excited to have been involved with another really exciting undertaking: Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman's Project Remix, which aims to get kids aged 13-19 making creative responses to and remixes of existing works. Comics are included as one of the categories, and I'm beyond thrilled that Kate Brown and I's Tamsin and the Deep has been included as one of the remixable works! 

You can read the entire first chapter (5 episodes) of Tamsin on the Project Remix site - and then go nuts with it! Compose a rap about spooky mermaids, write the prose adventures of What Tamsin Did Next. Personally it's just a ridiculous thrill to see Tamsin nestled between Jane Austen and Arthur Conan Doyle on the list, so I'm off to pretend I'm 13 and draw a comic where Tamsin teams up with Elizabeth Bennett to fight Moriarty. Possibly in space. 

Please spread the word to any 13-19-year-olds of your acquaintance, it's a really fun idea and there are FANTASTIC PRIZES TO BE WON. Have a go!

Anyway, it's great to see organisations like Booktrust and Movellas using comics as party of these kinds of initiatives - it's what we're always saying, that comics are such a great way of encouraging creativity and imagination, at any age, and I'm always delighted to help spread that message.

Thought Bubble! New Comics! Fun Times!

Here is the cover for THE CURSE OF BARRY STARKEY, a brand new comic by the amazing Adam Murphy and myself, with colour covers by the also-rather-amazing Lisa Murphy, which will be available exclusively from our table at this weekend's Thought Bubble comics festival in Leeds! Which table is that, you ask? THIS table:

Table 61, Royal Armouries Hall! THAT table.

(Thanks to Adam for the handy map there.)

Adam and I are sharing a table this year and we thought it'd be fun to do something new for the occasion, and... this is the result. 

Come find us to check out a copy. Witches! Tentacles! 2 x D20 rolls! THIS ONE'S GOT IT ALL. 

As well as that, I will of course also have a big stack of How To Make Awesome Comics:

and Adam will have a similar stack of the British-Comics-Awards-Nominated Corpse Talk:

So we'll be selling those, and doodling in them, and generally hanging out having AWESOME COMICS TIMES. We're in Royal Armouries Hall, surrounded by other awesome all-ages comics folk like Sarah McIntyre, David O'Connell, Gary Northfield, Emma Reynolds, James Turner, Daniel Clifford and Lee Robinson, and... just loads more, ok? What, you think I have all day to sit here linking to websites? I have comics to draw! COME BUY OUR COMICS. Thank you.

Awesome Comics Makers: UNITE!

A couple of happy bits of follow-up to last week's series of posts on Comics and Literacy...

You remember how I said it would be great to try and build a network of comics clubs around the country, allowing educators and parents to share ideas and resources, and young comics makers to share their work? Well Hannah Sackett thought so too! And what's even better, she's actually doing something about it: she's begun by setting up Comics Clubs Unite! To quote Hannah:

I have set up this site to see if children’s comic clubs around the British Isles are interested in joining together to create a website where they can share ideas and comics made by children.
My current idea is to keep the site All Ages (I work with 7-11 year olds) and for comic clubs to take turns each month to post their comics (and reviews). There would also be space for worksheets, ideas for club activities, etc.

Which sounds fantastic, and I think could grow into a hugely marvellous thing. If you run a school or library comics club already - or if you're interested in starting one - please give Hannah a shout using the contact form on Comics Clubs Unite. And if you're a creator, or publisher who'd be up for helping out - perhaps contributing worksheets or ideas for activities - again, please get in touch! Hannah is @DrHComics on twitter, or by all means give me a shout and I'll pass it on.

ALSO: remember how I was talking about great comics creators who do workshops in schools? And one of the names I mentioned was Laura Howell - brilliantly talented cartoonist, historic feminist icon (she should be, anyway - first female cartoonist to work on The Beano in its 70+ year history!) and creator of one of my favourite comics of 2013. Anyway, I was just notified about a very cool-sounding competition launched by Staedtler Teachers Club, whereby you can win the opportunity for Laura to come and teach some comics workshops at your school!

Laura Howell: so good at drawing comics she can do it WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING

Here are a few words from Laura:

 “If I could go back in time and tell my ten-year-old self that I would one day be a professional comic artist, I doubt she would have believed me. But I hope I can convince talented young artists that if they never let go of their dreams, one day they might achieve it – I'm proof!”

Find full details and learn how to enter the competition here!

ALSO, speaking of Laura Howell and comics workshops: I am going to be doing some comics workshops with Laura Howell? MAN that was a segue. We'll be teaming up with the fantastic Louie Stowell to run some Write And Draw Your Own Comics workshops at the Cartoon Museum in London on October 26th, to celebrate the release of Usborne's excellent new book by that name, which Louie wrote and Laura and I drew some bits and bobs for. Come along, we are planning some really quite ridiculously fun things.

More information and booking details here!

Comics and Literacy, part 5: Where Do We Go From Here?

Fig 1: The COMPLETE HISTORY OF BRITISH COMICS (abridged)

Welcome to the fifth and final part of my weeklong series of posts on comics and literacy. To sum up what we've covered so far: I believe that comics offer incredible opportunities for engaging children with reading and for developing their literacy skills, and I believe that we in this country have neglected and undervalued those opportunities to our mutual massive cost. We've covered:

1. Why reading comics matters
2. Why MAKING comics matters, too
3. Things that educators and parents can do, right now, to encourage this
4. Some excellent comics for children, to get you started.

I wanted to wrap things up by talking a bit about what I think we can do next. I think there's a growing awareness in this country of the important role comics have to play, and definitely a lot of progress is being made. But I still see there being a few puzzle-pieces missing; ideas and institutions that, if we could figure out a way to put into place, could bring about hugely positive changes.

So. Where do we go from here?

Here are a few ideas.

1) A NATIONAL NETWORK of COMICS CLUBS! 

I talked a bit in Wednesday's post about how teachers and librarians might consider starting up a comics club, to give a space and a time in the week for interested kids to simply read comics, and talk about comics, and maybe have a go at making some comics. I think a really cool thing would be to then try and take this further and give people a means of linking up and sharing their work and ideas. FOR EXAMPLE, for the sake of argument: you could make it a national club, free to sign up for, and every week there'd be some set challenge or activity on the theme of writing or creating characters or drawing samurai alligators or whatever it may be, that all the geographically diverse members could have a go at and then share and display their work; people's entries could then be displayed on the club's website, with maybe some Professional Comics Types offering some feedback and helpful criticism. A Comics Club, along the lines of something like the Young Poets Network* or Code Club, but for comics. Wouldn't that be cool? 

*huge thanks to Kate Sayer of the Story Museum for cluing me in about the YPN, it sounds fantastic and I think offers a really useful example here.

The other nice benefit of having the website / mailing list aspect of it, apart from providing a point of connection between lots of individual school and library clubs, is that it would allow kids to join up and be a part of it who... maybe aren't natural club-joiners? Bedroom comics geniuses across the land would have a way to be a part of something and to share their work and discover like-minded creators, without necessarily having to dive straight in with the whole potentially terrifying "talking to humans in real life about something you're passionate about" thing. Giving people that chance to dip their toes into a wider world, and allowing them to ease in and discover it on their own terms.

I may just be thinking of Young Me here. I digress.

Artwork from The Awesomest Comic, (c) 2014 by Eliza Day

2) A CENTRAL RESOURCE of child-friendly comics

I talked about this a bit in yesterday's post, the difficulty facing parents and educators in knowing where to start with children's comics, of finding good and suitable material. My ceaselessly amazing colleague Sarah McIntyre has talked about this before, about how great it would be to have a central resource - a database / website full of information about child-friendly comics - ideally, with the ability for users to write and share their own reviews of books. 

Basically, we just want to make it as easy as possible for parents and teachers and librarians and all those people who are not fortunate enough to already be Giant Comics Nerds to discover the good stuff, and to feel confident to start sharing it with their kids. And, even better, for kids to find it for themselves.

Good things are happening on this front already - a comment on Wednesday's post from Zoe Toft of Playing By The Book brings the following news:

Just to let you know that Melanie (Library Mice) and I are compiling a new booklist for the Federation of Children's Book Groups focusing on comics and graphic novels- it will be ready April 2015, and then free to any one who wants it eg schools, clubs, individuals.

...which sounds fantastic, and is a really positive development. Let's do more!

Artwork from The Awesomest Comic, (c) 2014 by Erin Snape

3) A similar CENTRAL RESOURCE of comics creators who do workshops!

Again, something that both Sarah and I have talked about before. It would be brilliant to tie this into the aforementioned website / database of kid-friendly comics, to also provide information on creators who visit schools and libraries to do workshops. (While we're on the subject, please refer to this excellent post of Sarah's that gives tons of invaluable advice to schools and libraries about how to host a successful author visit, and includes a huge list of creators who offer workshops.)

Essentially, I’d like a lot of the kind of things I’ve been trying to talk about in this week's posts to be maintained and updated as a central resource, easily accessible to educators and parents – lists of great, age-appropriate comics, lists of comics practitioners who do workshops, details of upcoming courses and events across the country. I think A Website could very handily contain all this, but whose website? The website of a body that does not quite exist yet, and which I shall for the purposes of this flight of fantasy refer to as The Comics Agency.

The Comics Agency. The Comics Advisory Board. The Awesome Ninja Comics Squad. Call it what you like, the basic idea is just of having a dedicated body - a dedicated place on the internet, and ideally a dedicated place in the actual real world, too - devoted solely to sharing information and ideas and resources and best practice and constantly spreading the message that, basically, everybody should be reading comics, because they are NIFTY. There are non-profit organisations in the US doing excellent work in this kind of area - Reading With Pictures and Comic Book Classroom - and I'd love to see something similar happen over here.

Artwork from The Awesomest Comic, (c) 2014 by Hector Day

4) WORLD DOMINATION

Once you've got those pieces of the puzzle in place, once you've built that framework: then, I think you could start to really have some fun. Have some fun and also, potentially, do some amazing things. How about setting up a scheme where people are easily able to chip in to donate graphic novels or comic subscriptions to under-resourced schools, for starters? Or how about this: we figure out how much it would cost to buy one awesome comic for EVERY SINGLE CHILD IN THIS COUNTRY. And then we run a kickstarter for exactly that much money.

Let's go back for a second to where this series of posts started, thinking about the Read On, Get On campaign. We began with the demonstrable fact that learning to read changes children's lives for the better, and the firm conviction that comics can, have been and should be a huge part of how children learn to read. If we're not making use of this amazing asset, this incredibly cool and powerful tool in the literacy toolbox, then frankly we're failing generations of children. And we've been doing that for a while now. And I think it's time we started doing better.

---

POSTSCRIPT: I'm pretty much reaching 'put up or shut up' point here. I think secretly my motivation in writing this monstrous weeklong series of posts was to basically talk myself into stopping talking, and actually starting to do something about all this stuff. THINGS are underway, and PLANS are being formed. If you would like to hear more about THINGS and PLANS, or get involved in the discussion, or sign up to join the Awesome Ninja Comics Squad, then in the first instance please either leave a message here or give me a shout on twitter - you can find me at @neillcameron, or throw in ideas using the #ComicsAndLiteracy hashtag. Let's see what we can do.

Comics and Literacy, part 4: Comics For 7-Year-Olds

A problem I hear a lot from teachers, librarians and parents - and I think it's getting better, but definitely still there - is of wanting to give comics to their kids but not knowing where to start: which titles are out there, which are suitable, which are good. To try and address this, about a year ago I made a list of Comics For 6-Year-Olds based completely subjectively on the particular favourites of one particular 6-Year-Old. Anyway, pretty much all the titles listed there are still much-loved round these parts, but since said 6-Year-Old is now a 7-Year-Old (and since the last year has seen the release of lots of REALLY AMAZING new children's comics) it seemed a sensible time to bring you some recommendations of... COMICS FOR 7-YEAR-OLDS!

1) Star Cat 
by James Turner
(David Fickling Books)

When we were up doing workshops at the Edinburgh Book Festival I grabbed the opportunity to, basically, completely blag an advance copy of James Turner's collected Star Cat book, as I had a sneaking the suspicion that the boy would rather enjoy it. And, wow, my god. I handed it over and that was that, basically we didn't hear a peep out of him for the rest of the day. Or indeed the next day. To the point where I was actually getting a little worried.

And that's the thing, Turner really gives you a gift here, an incredibly rich and densely-packed world to get lost in, with jokes piled upon jokes piled upon jokes, coming at you from all angles and across multiple dimensions at once. There's wordplay and cleverness and mind-bending concepts, but also sheer utter ridiculousness and robots and spaceships and vampires and, basically, just everything that is great in life.

Oh and hey, it's out TODAY! Go buy it!

Available from: David Fickling Books | Page 45 | Amazon

2) Dungeon Fun 

by Colin Bell and Neil Slorance

(DoGooder Comics)

I touched above on a reason I love some of these particular comics so much, which is the sheer amount of UNINTERRUPTED FREE TIME they have granted me. That's the huge, towering difference of the last year - when I made last year's list, they were all comics that we read together - which was wonderful and I wouldn't miss it for the world and we still do plenty of - but this year we're at the point where the boy is perfectly happy just grabbing one of these comics and reading it on his own. Like, for hours.

Case in point: Dungeon Fun, the hilarious and emotionally rich and ridiculously charming fantasy adventure from Colin Bell and Neil Slorance. I gave issue 1 to the boy last year and we read it together and he liked it pretty well. Cut to this summer, I gave him issue 2, and he grabbed it and read it cover to cover. And then flipped back to the start and read it cover to cover, again. And then flipped back to the start and read it cover to cover, AGAIN.

And seriously, this went on for days.

If I seem a bit evangelical these days about the power comics have to engage kids with reading: perhaps you can start to see why.

Available from: http://dogoodercomics.co.uk/dungeonfun

3) Corpse Talk
by Adam Murphy (with Lisa Murphy)
(David Fickling Books)

Speaking of engaging kids with reading, let us turn to Corpse Talk, Adam Murphy's brilliantly funny and richly informative collection of historical undead comic strip interviews. Or, as I will perhaps always think of it: "the comic that kept the boy quiet from Lancaster until well past Gretna Green". This is another wonderfully dense book, full of countless treasures, letting developing readers spend hours lost in beautifully-illustrated tales of Emmeline Pankhurst, Genghis Khan and William Wallace. (They pulled out his intestines on a stick and roasted them in front of him, you know. As far as my son is concerned this is the GREATEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED.)

Educational!

Available from: The Phoenix | Page 45 | Amazon

4) Adventure Time

by Ryan Penagos, Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb & Mike Holmes

I won't go on too much about this one, as the information that 'kids like Adventure Time' is perhaps not particularly startling to anyone. I do think it's interesting that the couple of times I've tried the TV show out on the boy it's pretty much left him completely cold, but he really enjoyed the comic. As well he might! It's very funny, and beautfully illustrated. (It feels glacially, excruciatingly paced to me, but that may just be my years at the coalface of 3-page weekly episodes talking, and I'll grant you that while the journey may be bafflingly long, it's EXTREMELY ENTERTAINING along the way.)

Available from: Page 45 | Forbidden Planet | Amazon

5) Gary's Garden 
by Gary Northfield
(David Fickling Books)

Whatever the opposite of 'glacially paced' is, it is Gary Northfield's superlative-exhaustingly wonderful Gary's Garden strips, which in perfectly-formed 1-4 page instalments cover an astonishing range of tonal and stylistic ground, from daft hilarity to thrilling (but still quite daft) adventure to profound insightfulness to heartbreak, and all the way back round again to daft. Is it possible for something to be "daftly hearbreaking"? Is anyone else in the world besides Gary Northfield even capable of such a thing?

It's a pretty great comic, is what I'm saying.

Available from: The Phoenix | Page 45 | Amazon

6) Moose Kid Comics
By Various, edited by Jamie Smart

This is an extraordinary comic, a declaration of war on mediocrity and a statement of deadly serious, hilarious intent. The range of creators featured is staggering and gives the comic an astonishing, diverse visual richness that belies its mere 36 pages. If I had to pick a highlight from the boy's perspective it'd be Jess Bradley's CECIL P WOMBAT: EXPERT ON EVERYTHING, based solely on the amount it got quoted at me for weeks after his reading it ("How Dare you!")

I'm lucky enough to have a print copy - and really, I mean incredibly lucky; it's a wonderful thing and for days we barely even saw the boy, just his legs poking out from under this massive copy of MOOSE KID - but fortunately you can read the whole thing for free online so seriously, go do THAT.

Available from: www.moosekidcomics.com

7) The Phoenix

By Various
(David Fickling Comics)

Look, I realise the Phoenix has been pretty well represented on this list already, but like I say, it's a subjective list. (Also, I think it's a pretty inarguable fact that this year they have put out a bunch of genuinely incredible books of children's comics, to an extent that is already warping the publishing landscape in this country in hugely positive ways). Anyway, I'm going to steer right into that subjectivity skid and recommend the weekly comic itself. Obviously. It's been a huge part of the boy's childhood since before he could read, and seeing him come into his own and become a confident reader and only come to love the comic more and more has been, honestly, more wonderful than I can realistically hope to express without sounding like a GIANT SAP.

If I had to pick particular favourites, I'd mention Laura Ellen Anderson's endlessly wonderful Evil Emperor Penguin and Jess Bradley's dementedly hilarious Squid Bits, both of which are the source of endless amusement frequently-quoted dialogue round these parts in any given week.

Available from: www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk

Okay! That's yer lot. As I say, an entirely subjective list that represents nothing beyond the particular favourites of one particular 7-year-old. There are several GLARING OMISSIONS, most notably:

...Jame Smart's Bunny Vs Monkey, and its solely because we haven't gotten to them yet; in that particularly case BvM is one of the boy's very favourite things in the world, hence my saving the book up to be a Christmas present.

For some hopefully slightly more objective, or at least wider-ranging recommendations of children's comics, check out some of the following places:

• the British Comics Awards Young People's Comic Awards category
• Forbidden Planet international's Comics For Children reviews
• Comics and Cola's Comics For Kids list

Also, if you're a teacher or librarian - I believe comics retailers like Gosh and Page 45 can offer a service where they will recommend and supply age-appropriate titles, so why not give them a shout?

Anyway, there you go: awesome comics for kids.

TOMORROW: THE FINAL CHAPTER! CONCLUDING REMARKS! AND... THE FUTURE!

Comics and Literacy, part 3: Things You Can Do

Fig 1: artwork from The Awesomest Comic. Why not make your OWN comic? You can even put elephants in it if you want.

So! To recap: so far in this weeklong series of posts, we are all agreed that:

1) reading comics is an incredibly powerful tool for developing children’s literacy skills, and that
2) making comics is EVEN BETTER.

(If we are NOT agreed, please go back and read those posts again until we are agreed. It's okay, I can wait.)

So today I'd like to suggest some concrete proposals for Things You Can Do to help support those objectives, to get us nearer to my arbitrary but entirely achievable goal of 2 MILLION NEW COMICS CREATORS!*

*Seriously. Totally achievable.

Firstly, a disclaimer: in these attempts to answer the crucial question of "How Do We Get More Comics To More Children?" you'll notice that I'm focusing mostly on the roles that can be played by schools and libraries and parents, rather than suggesting anything specifically regarding the retail sector. This is not because I don't think there are great ideas for things to be done there - and again, I will be talking about that a bit in a supplemental post - it's just that I, personally, have no way of putting those ideas into action. For example: I would love to create a brand new weekly children's comic that was printed on newsprint and cost 50p a copy and was available by the tills in every branch of Tesco across the land. But there are so many issues there, so many things that are beyond my personal resources and abilities to do anything about right now. So I wanted to concentrate in these posts on what I can do - what we can do, right now: parents, educators, librarians, cartoonists; everyone who cares about these issues.

So, what can we do?

1) Start a Comics Club!

If you're a teacher, why not start a comics club at your school? If you're a librarian, why not start one in your library? If you're 11, why not just go ahead and start one yourself, who needs those dumb grown-ups anyway? Over the past couple of years I've met several people who've done this, and heard some amazingly positive stories. It's a way of encouraging library use, and of giving a constructive outlet to the energies of creative, imaginative kids. I don't think this takes much in terms of resources; just give the kids a time and a place where they can meet, and talk about comics, and read comics, and work on their own comics.

If you HAVE done this in your school already, I'd love to hear from you to compare notes - please get in touch either in the comments here, or give me a shout on twitter! I think there's an opportunity to do something really exciting here, using social media to build up a network-of-networks, sharing ideas and resources and best practice.

2) Organise your own Comics Festival!

This ties in with the last point really nicely; if you have started up a comics club, or if you've been using comics as part of a school project, why not give your young creators something to work towards by organising a festival, an event where they can swap and sell and share and celebrate their work? This gives you a chance to get them thinking about all kinds of other areas beyond the actual storytelling and making-of-the-thing: promotion, marketing, publishing and entrepeneurship! And, believe me, some kids will go NUTS for that side of things.  

And hey, you can make really big posters and splash lots of paint around and all that fun stuff!

Look, here are some pictures by Sarah McIntyre that make this point far more effectively than these thousand words I'm writing:

And seriously, do go and read Sarah's brilliant post on this subject, from which I nicked those pictures- it's full of enthusiasm and inspiration and really great ideas.

3) Comics Workshops

Photo from Maggies' Day comics workshops at the Story Museum, used with permission.

A great way of getting started with either of the above, or just generally as a way of introducing comics, is to invite a comics creator to come visit your school or library and work with the kids. 

Now look, I do workshops, so it's hard for me to wax lyrical about the benefits of these without sounding horribly self-aggrandising. But I do think they can be a fantastic way of getting kids energised about writing and drawing, and I've had some really lovely feedback from places I've visited confirming that yes, it really does seem to work. So in this case I'm going to attempt to suck up my natural self-deprecation and say, yes, this is a totally awesome thing that you should definitely do. So that it does not entirely just seem like an advert for myself, though, I'll give you a List of Awesome Comics Creators Who Do Workshops (and are Not Me). sound fair? Excellent. Refer to further down this post for just that.

4) Set up a Comics Library

(Photos by Richard Bruton, courtesy of the Forbidden Planet blog)

The best way to get kids fired up and excited about reading and writing and drawing comics, of course, is to give them a bunch of awesome comics to read. Lots of school libraries will have a comics section, of course, but it can be very hard for teachers and librarians who are not themselves avid comics nuts to know where to start, or to know what material is appropriate for what age range. It is possible, though, and we can all look to the amazing library Richard Bruton set up in his school in Yorkshire as an example of what can be achieved - and if you have any doubts, go and ask Richard about what engagement and borrowing levels have been like with that library. It's really inspiring stuff, and frankly I dream of every school having access to such wonders.

You could even make comics ON your library, too, if you like. That seems to work pretty well.

There's a few ideas to get us started, anyway. And now, some Resources To Help You Do Those Things!

BOOKS

There are lots of great books on writing and drawing and making comics, of course, and lots of great resources available for free online, too. (I've collated links to a few such things in this always-handy blog post, for example). A lot of those resources tend to be suitable for slightly older kids, though. Happily, books for younger readers offering help and advice on How To Make Your Own Comics turn out to be very much like buses, in that you wait ages for one and then three come along all at once. To wit:

How To Make Awesome Comics

by me

(David Fickling Books)

Clearly the best book in the history of the universe, and one that every right-thinking human should read. I won't give you the hard-sell here, please refer to previous posts for that.

(One thing I'd just like to just be clear about, here: I'm not banging on about all this stuff in an attempt to sell my book, although I can appreciate how it may totally look like that. It's actually more that I made the book because I think this stuff is so important.)

Available from: The Phoenix | Amazon | Page 45

Write and Draw Your Own Comics

by Louie Stowell and various 

(Usborne)

A fantastic manual on all aspects of comics-making by Louie Stowell and various amazing artists including Jess Bradley, Laura Howell and, um, me again. SORRY. Includes stickers! (I'd be more specific but I haven't actually seen a copy yet. But going by this fantastic review from Read It Daddy, it sounds PRETTY GREAT.)


Available from: Amazon | Lots of other places I'm sure!

Let's Make Comics!

By Robin Etherington and Zak Simmonds-Hurn

(Oxford University Press)

One for even slightly younger kids, I believe, from the powerhouse team of one-half-of-the-Etherington-Brothers and the amazingly talented Zak Simmonds-Hurn.

Available from: Amazon

There you go, that should get you started!


WORKSHOPS

Here is a quick, and no doubt highly incomplete, list of creators I know who visit schools and libraries and provide comics workshops. I've indicated where people are based, but of course people are able to travel; it's just as an indicator. Please contact each creator to enquire as to availability and rates.

Gary Northfield, shaping the minds of the nation's youth at the Cartoon Museum

LONDON & SOUTH EAST

Sarah McIntyre (Cakes in Space, Oliver and the Seawigs, Vern & Lettuce)
http://www.jabberworks.co.uk/events/
(please note, Sarah is booked up through the rest of 2014, at the very least)

Gary Northfield (Teenytinysaurs, Gary's Garden, Derek the Sheep)
http://www.garynorthfield.com/workshops/

Karen Rubins (The Phoenix)
http://karenrubins.com/workshops/

SOUTH WEST

The Etherington Brothers (Monkey Nuts, Long Gone Don, Baggage)
http://thecomicclub.blogspot.co.uk/

SCOTLAND

Adam Murphy (Corpse Talk, The Phoenix)
http://adammurphy.com/

MIDLANDS

Laura Howell (The Beano, The DFC)
http://www.laurahowell.co.uk/

NORTH-EAST 

Daniel Clifford & Lee Robinson (Art Heroes)
http://artheroes.co.uk/

...as I say, that's just a few names - there's loads more great creators out there doing workshops, I just had to start somewhere. I'd like to try and maintain a fuller version of this list somewhere. I'm going to come back to that in Friday's post, in fact.

OTHER RESOURCES

• Here's an interview on GoodComics4Kids about running your own graphic novel reading group - US-based but obviously a lot applies: http://blogs.slj.com/goodcomicsforkids/2014/09/29/interview-jessica-lee-on-running-a-graphic-novel-book-club/

• The Phoenix have lots of resources on their website for schools and libraries, including some specific lesson plans for KS2: http://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/schools-libraries/

• You can download lots of activity sheets and exercises from the How To Make Awesome Comics archive, here: http://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/awesome-archive/

• Here are direct links to some template comics pages, which can come in very handy when getting kids started:

   

   

   

Anyway. As I think I mentioned earlier, the very best way to get kids excited about reading and writing and making comics is to give them some awesome comics to read. Which brings us to...


TOMORROW: SOME AWESOME COMICS TO READ