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.