Comic Boom - Comics in Education
An education podcast exploring the use of comics in education. Each episode I’ll be joined by a special guest from a wide range of backgrounds, from passionate education professionals to academics and industry experts. I'll be exploring a wide range of perspectives in the search for information and inspiration. Listen in if you’d like to grow your understanding of the theory behind comics, discover the most effective approaches to using comics and graphic novels in your classroom and gain inspiration from passionate comics creators.
This season of Comic Boom is sponsored by ALCS, The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society! Find out more about their work at www.alcs.co.uk
Comic Boom - Comics in Education
Comic Boom - Comics in Education - with the Cartoon Museum's Steve Marchant
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Lucy chats to The Cartoon Musuem's Steve Marchant
Steve Marchant is a cartoonist and comic artist who has worked for British Airways, the BBC, ITV, the British Council and other clients big and small. He has also been running cartoon and comic strip workshops in schools and libraries across the UK since 1992, now primarily for The Cartoon Museum where he is also the learning coordinator and comic art consultant to the curator. Steve also runs adult evening courses in drawing for comics and graphic novels at City Lit, a university near Holborn.
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Producer and Host: @Lucy_Braidley
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Music by John_Sib from Pixabay
Hello, and welcome to comic boom, the comics and education podcast. If you're interested in hearing more about the crossover between comics and education, then this is the podcast for you. My name is Lucy staff at Bradley. And each week I'll be joined by a fellow educator. Educator and academic a librarian, or a creator of comics to discuss their journey into comics and provide some inspiration to influence your practice and hopefully shine some light on some titles you can bring into your libraries, your classrooms, and your bookshelves at home too. Today I am joined by Steve Marchant. Steve is a cartoonist and a comic artist. Who's worked for British airways, the BBC ITV, the British council, and many other clients, big and small. Uh, he's also been running cartoon and comic strip workshops in schools and libraries across the UK since 1992. Now he does that primarily for the cartoon museum in London, where he is the learning coordinator and comic art consultants To the curator. Steve also runs adult evening courses in drawing for comics and graphic novels at city lit a university near Holborn So many different things to talk about, really interested to hear about the cartoon museum more the exhibitions. They have the different initiatives that they run throughout the year. I think there's loads of things that could be built into people's. Practice across the year. Moments of celebration things to get the children. and young people that we work with excited about creating their own. Comics and. Cartoons. So some really good practical takeouts from this episode. And Steve was really interesting to talk to. Here's what he had to. say.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315Hello Steve, welcome to Comic Boom.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Hello Lucy, thank you for having me.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315It's brilliant to have you here. Can we talk about you individually first? I know you're here as part of your role at the Cartoon Museum as well, we're going to hear a lot more about that later. Um, but can you tell us a little bit about your journey as a comics reader? Where did that start for you?
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Well, I've been reading comics, well since before I could read really, comics fascinated me as a very small child. I don't know exactly why. I enjoyed picture books and I think for me at a very early age, it was the idea that there was a whole sequence of pictures, that I could visually follow, the story from. So, you know, because at that age I couldn't read. So, comics entranced me as a, as a child. and my dad and my mum would feed that. And so, you know, I read, Nursery comics, you know, growing up there was comics, you? know, with fairy tale characters and nursery rhyme characters So That was probably when I was about three years old and then eventually graduated towards, you know, the Dandy, the Beano Whizzer and Chips all the usual suspects And then one day, my dad came in with an American Batman comic, and that just blew my tiny mind. And here I am. Here I
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315was a big moment.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311years later.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315And did they form part of your school, journey at all, or was it very much something that was at home?
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Oh, in those days, it was very much at home. If I, I mean, I did take comics to school to read at break time or to show my friends. But, if I ever dared to take one out in the classroom, say, if I'd finished my work. And I thought, oh, I'll just finish reading Spider Man. it would be confiscated and given back to me at the end of the day with a letter to my mom saying, don't let Steven, bring these American horror comics into the school again. And, but they still did and they weren't horror comics, but it was a very different time. and it was kind of ironic as well because comics is what taught me to read. because at that young age, I was getting comics and I couldn't read them. I was pestering my mum to read the stories to me all the time. And she got a bit fed up with it. So, When I was four, me mum used to sit me down at half past one after watch with mother and, for half an hour a day she began to teach me the phonetic alphabet. And then she would teach me that, you know, T and H makes thuh and C and H makes chuh and that the magic E on the end of the word made the vowel say its name in the middle. And all these simple little rules, and then I would spend the rest of the afternoon staring at the speech bubbles in my comics, trying to sort of sound them out to myself. Which meant that when I started school at five, I had a reading test. And, I had a reading age of fourteen. So despite, despite these evil, awful comics being so bad for me. they did mean that, I had an adult, pretty much an adult reading level at the point I started school.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315That's incredible. That's why you were finishing early, getting your comic out. so, you were reading very much the kind of weekly, editions of comics as a child. Is that something that you're still interested in, at the moment? What does your reading diet look like now?
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Well, it is a thing. I mean, for decades, I had a very healthy reading diet of comics. I mean, I had all the, all the great stuff from Fantagraphics, Drawn and Quarterly. you know, all the, all those, like, wonderful, worthy creators. As well as a smattering still of Marvel and DC and, things like that. But, In recent years, I found myself having to downsize quite considerably, so a lot of my
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315Mm-Hmm.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311graphic novels and, and books about comics, and comics themselves, I wound up donating to Staffordshire University,
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315Oh, really?
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311well yeah, they have a graphic novel, degree, and I've, I've Taught up there a couple of times and the first time I went I was dismayed at the state of their so called library Which was really just two shelves of old Dog eared Star Trek And Buffy the Vampire Slayer graphic novels and so I basically gave them 600 books So now they've got all the good stuff. They've got Jack Kirby, Will Eisner They got a lot foreign cartoonists that they can look at
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315That's
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311And perhaps it will stop them all trying to draw bloody manga all the time.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315And can you go and get your books out of the library as well? If you, if you have a fancy reading, one
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311well? yeah, that's the thing. I mean I have you know, apparently they've named the library after me and Anytime I want to read one of my books. I can just catch a train to stoke on trent and they're all still there, you, know, so what that means, though, is that these days, I've gone back to buying the Beano, basically, the Beano for your listeners, if you might have not read it for long years, a very clever comic. I got right back into it when DC Thompson, the publisher, used to send the Cartoon Museum free copies for us to put out in the classroom. And so I began reading, it and I realized it changed a lot from when I was a little kid, where it was a pretty kind of anodyne read very clever writing, like, almost like sitcom level, uh, script writing. So the kids enjoy the knockabout antics, but there's stuff there for the parents as well. so, I began, it's like my weekly Wednesday treat now, from the, the, the little, uh, newsagent stand in Brixton Tube Station. The guy knows I've come for my Beano, passes it to me. And, uh, Yeah. and I still enjoy Viz, I mainly get it from my mum, who always asks for it when I go to visit. She's 86, and growing up she was one of the most prudish women you could ever wish to meet. Uh, but something's happened in old
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315Starting to loosen up a bit.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311a bit of toilet humour. Yeah,
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315so I know you're a cartoonist as well, um, as well as being youth worker, tutor, having your role at the cartoon museum. You've had quite a varied career, all linked into different aspects of comics and education. I wondered if you could tell us a little bit about that kind of career path and how you got to be from this child. reading Beano at break times to, to turning that into more of a job role.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311When I was at college, you know, there wasn't the kind of graphic novel degree courses that there are around the country now. I did a, I did a fairly wacky art course called Art and Design in Social Contexts. which was a two year diploma, but it was degree level. So I got a grant. I didn't have to pay any fees or anything. And, that basically was, to prepare artists for going and working in the community. And that's part of what we did on the course. And that's why I kind of like left college and moved to London to, uh, to attempt to do. But at that point, I was, I wasn't really thinking of doing comic stuff, uh, with that. I mean, it just seemed to be something I, at the time I wanted to keep separate. so I became a youth worker and I would just do general art workshops with, you know, ne'er do well teenagers. And, sometimes younger kids as well. And I was a youth worker for Lewisham Council in South London for 18 years. when I decided I, I was going to quit, my boss said, well, you've done alright because people get, people do less time for murder, is what he said. But yeah, it was during that time that I started to get the idea that I could be doing comic workshops with kids and that's kind of where it developed from. And I also. Was working at a school for cartoonist, in the, early nineties, called the London Cartoon Center, which was set up by David Lloyd of V for Vendetta Fame. it was an adult's, cartooning school basically. And I wound up, assisting there and then I wound up, running the place and that's when I first started to watch the tutors. They were all. Proper comic artists. I began to sit in on their sessions and not just sort of join in, but watch how they taught it and it meant that I could, pitch in if they were unavailable. And then from that, that's when I began developing my own cartoon workshops, visiting schools and libraries, colleges, right across mainly around London, but actually right across Britain, occasionally, and a few times in Europe. And that's also when I began working at the Cartoon Museum. And first that was. Just freelance, just as and when required, but then it's become more of a role over the years and for the last six years I've been here full time as the learning coordinator and as pretty much the only tutor at the moment. So, uh, that's the long and winding road Lucy that brought me
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315that is fantastic. I'm going to ask you a little bit more about the kinds of things that you're doing at the Cartoon Museum, but I think it'll be really useful. There's a lot of listeners outside of the UK for the podcast, but also just spread right across. They might not be familiar with what the Cartoon Museum is, where it is and the kinds of things that it offers. Could you give us a little bit of an intro? Okay.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Yeah, sure. So the Cartoon Museum, is in the heart of London, quite near to Oxford Circus Station, which is right in the middle of the main shopping district. And, we're, a building dedicated to showing original cartoon and comic strip art. we don't just cut pictures out of books and stick them up. Uh, we, occasionally buy if we've got any money, which, you know, doesn't happen often. or people donate artwork to us. And we have over 200 pages of original cartoon and comic art on display. we have one big gallery. chronicling 300 years of British cartoon art going right back to the days of artists like Hogarth and Gilray right up to modern times right up to just just pre covid and That's kind of a semi permanent collection. Although that is gonna have a rejig later this year Then we have another gallery alongside That's our temporary exhibition gallery, and that's currently where we have, artwork and props from Wallace and Gromit which has proven to be one of the most popular exhibitions we've ever mounted. It's, uh, been a real big hit for us. And so there's, uh, a lot of the production art that went into a film called The Wrong Trousers, which is a hilarious film,
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315I remember it well. I think, I feel like, when did that come out? The wrong trousers. I was about to say I feel like it's from, from my childhood. So,
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311yeah, it was, That's what prompted Aardman Entertainment to contact us and say would we host an exhibition to celebrate 30 years of that film?
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315That's
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Because it's the one that won them the Oscar for best short animated film. And so, uh, we've actually got the real Oscar on display. you? know, I've never seen a genuine Oscar before, but we've
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315either. That's brilliant. And just going back to the, kind of, the original artwork element, I was lucky enough, to go to an exhibition at, I think it was at Somerset House at the Beano, the year before last. And it was, I think that was the first time, since then I've seen several different things, but that was the first time I'd gone to see an exhibition of, the original artwork, of comics. And it blew my mind just seeing, Just the physicality of it and seeing the mark making and the changes and the editing and the kind of where things have been whited out and then gone back over and you can see where all the changes have been made and the pencils and stuff. I just, I absolutely love that stuff. I feel like you feel even more connected to the creator and the person at the other end when you see that kind of level of detail.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Yeah. I mean, that's exactly it. Because basically what you're getting is, Another story altogether. When you look at the page of comic artwork, obviously there's the story as presented to you by the writer and the artist, but you do see the story of that sheet of paper. Like you say, you can see where Tippex was used. You can see where a word balloon was changed. You can see little notes in the margin sometimes to the editor. All of which, I find absolutely fascinating, you can also see like, which gave me great heart when I was starting out as a cartoonist, you can see that like, Yeah. like I mentioned, TPEX is can be copiously used. sometimes you can see where artists have redrawn part of a picture and then glued it over the top. All of which I, used to do, still do. when I first started out in the eighties, I used to just think that made me a rubbish artist. But, no, it, you know, a lot of the, the great and the good have worked that way too. So it's very encouraging to see. And also the sheer scale of it is usually comic art and, and original cartoon art actually is usually drawn way, way bigger than you see it printed on the page. So you do get that visual impact. And we, we have a. An original Beano front cover in full color from 1969 on the wall right now. And it's like kind of A2 size. It is absolutely huge. And Yeah. just visually, it just knocks your socks off.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315That is incredible. I mean, in fact, that's brought me on to something that I was going to talk to you about. Because I know the museum's all about getting people into the act of drawing, creating cartoons, expressing themselves visually. and I know that through lots of conversations that I've had With librarians and with educators, both on the podcast and outside the podcast, that, sometimes there's some real hesitations around, you know, their own skill at drawing and what the limitations that that might have on them being able to introduce children to comics and creating comics. And I just wondered if you had any reflections through your experience on how that can kind of be overcome.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Well, Yeah, hopefully a few. I mean, for starters, I think, those kind of, hesitations, as you put it. It actually gives people a valuable insight as to how the kids might feel. You know, if they themselves are unsure about whether or not they can draw, then that's how the kids are feeling. So, Yeah. I think that's quite valuable insight. And, there's two things you can do around That Number one, which is, you know, Kept me in business for 30 odd years is inviting someone like me to come and run a comics work workshop for you And I mean we get 60 or 70 school visits here at the museum every year Where they come for an hour and a half in our classroom and I teach them You know how to draw how to draw comics or how to draw particular types of characters but also it's important to remember for adults as well as children, not all comics have to be like intricately detailed drawings. You know, a lot of the most famous and wonderful comics and cartoons in the world have been really quite simply drawn. I mean, you could go right down as simple as something like the Mr. Men. And the little missus. you know, I mean, they're just really simple, colorful shapes with faces on them and yet, you know, world famous, extremely successful. So you could just take shapes, give them little arms and legs and faces. In fact, I did something very similar about a year ago with a group of very young people, up in, Labour Grove in West London, and they were doing a project on maths, basically. And they asked me, they said, Steve, could you come and do some comic workshops with our children, but on the theme of maths. And my first thought was, oh dear, you know,
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315That would be my first thought too.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311yeah, new territory for me. I mean, I can tie it in with like, Some subject they're doing at school like, you know, history or geography or a particular book or something But I've never been asked about maths before so I thought how on earth can I do this? Then I had the idea of turning numbers into characters And so we drew cartoon ones and twos and threes and nines and tens And then we gave them little faces and little arms and legs and then with the kids I kind of brainstormed Uh, really simple story where, uh, they each have their own number character and the story was simply that there was a, they live in number land or something and there's an evil big robot thing coming called the number cruncher, which was like a big sort of clanking metal thing that eats numbers. And so All these number characters, the Mighty Maths Team as they became known, all had to, multiply themselves together to make bigger numbers that were too big for the number cruncher. And so it was kind of like doing a bit of maths in comics. And it went, uh, Yeah. if I say so myself, it went very, very well. And they, they got a lot of, a comic printed up of the, the stories that the children's did. So you, you can just use simple shapes, use numbers, use letters of the alphabet. There's, an American cartoonist I really like called Ivan Brunetti.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315Yes.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311he uses characters that are very, very simply drawn. They have circles for heads and usually triangles for bodies with little stick arms and legs. And yet he Does a lot of very sophisticated comics, uh, just using that method. I love his stuff I haven't seen any of his stuff for quite a while, but I've got quite a bit of it Back home. It's part of the the collection that I did manage to retain much to my girlfriend's annoyance
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315And so you mentioned some of the kind of workshops that you've done, And I know that the Cartoon Museum also has online resources as well for people that are a little bit further away and maybe couldn't manage a school visit. So, but what sorts of things in general can schools access from the Cartoon Museum? It sounds like you're having quite a lot of visits and there's lots of things that schools could, could engage with.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311if schools visit the Cartoon Museum website and then head for the learning One of the first things you'll see on the way down the page is it will say free resources. Click here And that's where you will find a lot of the worksheets that I use in our workshops. You know, how to draw a cartoon face, how to draw a cartoon figure. there's a couple of kind of, comic strip story making games that, they can print off where some of the pictures have been done. to start the story, and they have to finish it off themselves, including speech bubbles, and all the rest of it. And then there's some caricature, sheets, how to draw a funny picture of, Beyonce, or, Boris Johnson, obviously.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315Naturally.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311I mean, Boris Johnson. It's just like a potato with hair. so yeah, so there's a lot of worksheets that schools can download and, come up with their own ideas of how to use them. It's not, they're not kind of prescribed in any way. But, most schools, I think, could get a decent sort of 45 minute lesson, uh, of some of the stuff that, Is there on our website and is completely free for them to use.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315That's fantastic because so much, About, those kind of resources, it's just knowing they're there and knowing where you can go to access that kind of thing, so that's brilliant for people listening to podcasts to be able to find those. I had a little look through some of your workshops that are available for schools and I was really drawn to This Is Us, the autism and SEND friendly workshop that you run. And I just thought that that would be really interesting to just talk through a little bit. What does that involve and how have you developed that?
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Okay, well, there's about two years or so back that our director, Joe Sullivan, began sort of suggesting that we target some of our work more at the SEND and autistic communities and families as well. And so we then worked with a couple of autism specialists who have worked in schools to develop two two platforms, basically. So there's, this is us, which, It's a class based school project and, that? is essentially, allows kids of whatever level of ability to contribute to one giant cartoon picture. And so, uh, no matter, you know, whether they can just scribble shapes on paper or whether they can perhaps sometimes draw, you know, properly in inverted commas, everybody gets to take part in the picture and it makes sense as a picture. It's essentially, we create first of all, a big swirly, whirly patterns and shapes cartoon world, like a big universe picture. And they have a go with my help. at, drawing a very simple cartoon version of themselves. I mean, as simple as just asking them, do you wear glasses? Here's how you draw glasses. What kind of hair have you got? Is it long? Do you have a ponytail? Have you got curly hair? Here's how you draw that. And then they have a go at drawing the rest of the body. And then we cut those out and we stick them on to the cartoon. Universe they've created so it ends up being cartoon versions of them in their own cartoon world And then that's also a giant sheet of paper that's stuck on the wall And then we take it down roll it up and they can take it away for display at school and obviously the teachers then have been watching what I've been doing and They could probably have a go at running a similar session Themselves, I would imagine so there's that and then what we also have just fit for families with autistic and special needs kids is, that once every two months we have relaxed Monday, because on Monday, we're closed, to the public, that is. quite a few of us do come in and do work, but there's no members of the public floating about, which makes it perfect as a quieter environment for families with autistic children to bring them along and then they can enjoy the galleries in peace and quiet. And we also have some other little simple fun art activities. they can take part in, should they so choose. And then there's, as ever, when the classroom is open to the public, there are piles of comics that people can just sit and read, or doodle and draw, for themselves. So it's a very, it is very relaxed, you know, and it also gives the parents a chance to, you know, get out of the house and chat with me and my colleague Amber, and That's been going very well. And we've been very pleased with the take up, Last year, it won us the Museums and Heritage Award for Community Engagement, which I was especially, I know, I was, I was really, uh, surprised. I knew, my boss had entered us for it. We thought we might get an honourable mention. So we went along to this well swanky, dinner in, uh, Trafalgar Square. And, yeah, yeah, Very posh place. we sat down and we thought, well, at least we're getting a nice dinner out of it. And when they announced us as the winner, boy oh boy, we were delighted and very surprised.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315That's fantastic to have that recognition. And what feedback have you been getting from the people, the children, young people that have been attending too, that they've been really enjoying being able to access all those kinds of activities?
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311yeah, it's been nothing but positive. We do have feedback forms that parents on Relax Monday fill out. And I have a very simple kind of like box ticking and drawing smiley faces kind of thing. For the kids that come to do this is us. We've had no kind of negative feedback at all, just, lots of encouragement and praise, which I'm, I'm delighted with because encouragement and praise was not something I was getting when I was, trying to do cartoons and comics at school, as I said earlier.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315That's good. Yeah, you're reaping the
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311It's called, it's called Revenge Loser.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315Revenge that contributes to society. That's brilliant. Very nice. I know that the Cartoon Museum also is trying to encourage more nationally schools, organizations, young people to get involved. And you've got your annual award scheme running as well, the Alison Brown Young Comics Maestro Award. For any listeners new to that. Can you tell us a little bit about that initiative, and maybe how they can get involved, the kind of timings, because I know lots of listeners run their own comics club, they might know of a young person that, that would be a great person to, enter that, so I'd love to hear more about that
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311okay, well, it's a fairly new, competition, that we, we launched, two years ago. Alison Brown. was a much loved friend and colleague here at the Cartoon Museum. She ran the, uh, the front desk and ran the shop. But sadly she passed away from COVID, in 2021. So, lots of people wanted to, you know, make a donation of some kind, to donate some money. And so we thought we'd set up the Young Comics Maestro Award. Because Alison, was always encouraging. young cartoonists and comic creators, she would, you know, if they had a little photocopied comic that they'd made themselves, she would sell it in the shop. she was just a very friendly and lovely woman. So we thought, this is the best way we could honor her memory. And so, I think this year's will be opening in March. There's usually like a two month window. So it'll be like sometime in March, we'll announce it on our website and it will be open for entries until about the end of May. And then they'll be judging sometime around the end of June, I would imagine. that's how we've done it so far. And, what we're looking for is, it's just for under 18s. Up to three pages of original comic strip art. It doesn't have to tell a complete story. It can be part of a story, that is projected to be much bigger. But it is enough for us to get a sense of, a young person's abilities. then, you know, the winner will get, I think it's 200. And, we have a display of their work and some runners up here at the Cartoon Museum. So it's, uh, you know, it'll get a lot of publicity. And, you know, we hope it'll give people a bit of a leg up.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315And what are you looking at in terms of selecting that winner? the judges looking for purely artistic merit? Is it the story, the narrative writing, or is it the combination of both?
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Yeah, it's, mainly the combination of both. Because, I mean, as we all know, comics are a combination of words and pictures most of the time. I mean, I have seen silent comics. I've never never attempted one myself. I think they'd be very, very difficult to do. if it's written and drawn to a, you know, a decent standard, that's great. but other things that are kind of key and crucial is originality. I mean, the number of times we've had entries where it's just a thinly veiled version of Wolverine, you know, except, oh, this guy's got six claws, not three. Then, you know, you think, well, no, sorry. And we are looking to try and encourage people, to attempt something, something
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315a bit different.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311something new. Um, rather than just aping, their favorite style. I mean, yeah, that's perfectly natural because I mean, that's what I did when I was starting out as a cartoonist. I was kind of always had in mind that I wanted to draw like. Insert name of favorite current artist here and, before long, I realized I was, if I went down that route, I would only ever be the poor man's version of, and so that's when I've set about, you know, just developing my own style. And so that's what we encourage. entrants to do for the Young Comics Maestro Award. And, you know, we do get a fairly good standard of entries. It's always interesting to see what people send.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315if teachers, librarians, anyone listening that was running a comics club thinks of somebody that might be interested, they can always give them a nudge, can't they, to enter, or create a piece of work specially for it.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Of course, yeah, and schools and libraries, Can enter, work on children's behalf. That's no problem. We're currently running the Young Cartoonists, Award, which is a separate thing for just people who do single panel gags. And, quite a few of those entries have come in from school teachers saying this is the work of, you know, Jemima Smith. Age nine and yeah, that's absolutely fine.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315I wonder if you could kind of just drawing on all of the things that you've learned. through your experience of working with children and young people in comics over the years. We can pick out some key takeaways that might be useful for teachers and educators listening to just influence and inspire them to try something different or a new approach in their practice.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Okay, well the first thing I would recommend is. remember that some children might have never read a comic. I'm surprised how often that actually crops up. Uh, especially in these days of, you know, digital tablets and, all the other cornucopia of visual delights that children are growing up with. Yeah, it's like, it doesn't happen terribly often, but, like, often enough for me to have noticed that there'll sometimes be, you know, two or three kids. At the start, when I say hands up who likes comics, there might well be two or three kids that don't put their hand up. And then they'll say, I've never read a comic. Luckily we've got lots of Beanos on the tables in our classroom. So I'll just say, well, there's a comic. Have a bit of a read. And it just acclimatizes them to what it is. So make sure that kids know what comics are. And if possible, bring some in. you can borrow, age suitable graphic novels from, uh, your local library, if you're lucky enough to still have one. or, you know, you might know somebody that could bring some stuff in, for them.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315and quite often libraries have access to them online as well. I know quite a lot of libraries you can access Beano each week online for free. which is a good way because you can put it on the whiteboards then and everyone can see it really big in the classroom as well, which is useful.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Yeah, I mean, actually, you're right, because nowadays a lot of classrooms have those gigantic, uh, kind of projector screens. So, Yeah. I mean, that would be a perfect way of showing, uh, comics to the entire classroom. Maybe get them to, to read out the word balloons. As though they were reading a play. Choose who's gonna be Dennis, who's gonna be Minnie the Minx, who's gonna be Dad. And then they read out those bubbles for that page. That would be a good way of getting them into reading. As well as enjoying the pictures, I did something similar with that years back in the school and it worked really well. then the other thing I would say about that is get the kids excited from the start. I will show them a comic and I'll show them comics that I've done with other children and they'll be like, oh, Wow. you know, and that gets them excited. So then when they sit down to try and write and draw their own stuff, they've got a clear goal in mind. They want their stuff to be as good as the stuff they've just been shown. And despite this age of, you know, everything being on the Internet. There is still a, a thrill I see on, you know, young people's faces when stuff gets, stuff gets printed up as actual physical comics, just like something they would see in a shop that really validates their work for them. These days, you know, you can print things yourselves, you know, if you've got a decent printer at school, you could make little comic booklets, you know, and staple them together yourself or actual printing costs have come down massively. These days, I've been getting comics printed for school groups I'm working with. And you can get like a sort of a 32 page comic or a 48 page comic in color. On decent paper, and you can get maybe, 400 copies of that comic printed for about 300. It's insanely cheap,
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315Yeah, I agree. There's something so special about that physical end point, and yeah, being able to hold something in your hands that you've created, and you can put them in the library, you can send a copy home, you can have copies in the school library, even maybe the public library down the road, if you've got one, as you say, And then that moment of pride, it's not just one moment of pride, is it? It's every time you see it, somebody reading it in the library, every time, you know, you come across it at home. it's constantly reinforcing that you can, you can do this, you can make something, you can,
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Well, yeah, I mean, it's never been easier, I think, in history for people to actually get their work out. And, of course, you know, I'm not discounting, the power of the Internet, because if you've got all the pages of your comic as a PDF, well, you can, email that to friends and, and relatives all around the world. So you can always have an online presence with your work as well. On the learning page in the Cartoon Museum website, if you scroll right down to the bottom, you can see, a couple of comics that I did a couple of years ago now with groups. We did, two comics called Life Under Lockdown, where I got the young people in different groups from around Westminster, to do simple comic strips, showing us what they did during the times of lockdown in 2020 and 2021. And, it was really interesting. To see what it was, you know, that they put down about what they did. there was a great deal of, Netflix involved. And, and computer games. But there was also some kids who, like, you know, one kid learned to play the guitar. And things like that. It was, uh, very, very, very interesting stuff. Those comics, uh, you know, they're available to download as PDFs on the Cartoon Museum learning page of the website. And I'm currently working on two others with groups I worked with last year. I'm just finishing those off. I worked with a group of young refugees, where we did a comic called Living in Britain, with their sort of thoughts and feelings about what it's like, what it's like, to live in Britain, having come from another country, and I'm just finishing off, a comic booklet that I did with only two schools, but it was over 80 children, all about climate change, their fears and worries and concerns about what's been going on, You know, in the news every day. I mean, just, just yesterday, it was all, all the flooding,
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315Yeah.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311spread across Britain, so, I mean, that's addressed in this comic about, you know, people think of, global warming as just meaning things get hotter, but when the ocean, as we know, when the ocean gets hotter, it evaporates more into the atmosphere, which creates more rain clouds, and that's what's creating, you know, all the problems that we're seeing around the world now. So, the kids did their, cartoon responses to that with suggestions as to what they think they could do, to kind of ameliorate. the oncoming, climate crisis, putting it down in a comic book means that that will be available for the children to read, hopefully in a, in a way that's more understandable than, uh, trying to read about it in a newspaper and, and hopefully not as perhaps worrying or frightening as it might appear when you see people getting flooded out on the news. so hopefully it'll get them thinking so I'm hoping that we'll get those comics printed very soon And then they will be available to download on the website as well
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315To end the podcast, I usually ask guests to recommend us a book, a comic, or could be a book about comics, to add to our to be read piles. What would you recommend that we checked out?
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311Okay. Well, I just very recently, finished reading a graphic novel. I've been trying to track down, for over a year, which I've heard about that it was very good. I've seen a couple of snippets online and, it is, one of the best graphic novels I've ever experienced. Um,
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315quite an intro.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311just, yeah, I mean, it is a clever, clever, clever book that really toys with the, the medium of comics and with the way that we read Um, it does make sense, but when you get to the end of this book that I'll tell you about, tell you in a minute, when you get to the end of this book, you immediately turn back to the front page and begin reading it again, because all of these little things that slightly odd things that were mentioned or said as you were reading it. Suddenly they all make a really kind of grim and interesting kind of sense. So the book is called Why Don't You Love Me? by a man called Paul B Rainey. it's, kind of a landscape format book because it. was originally a webcomic. but it's been collected as a lovely kind of hardback book. And, It's, yeah, a right riveting read. It's basically, it's about a, a young couple, who, who don't get on very well and, they've got like a couple of kids who drive them mad, it's not knockabout comedy. It's not a bunch of one liners. It's really kind of like, it's kind of funny because it's true. And honestly. In terms of, comic book sophistication. For me, that's up there with Watchmen, in terms of the way it plays around with the actual nature and form of, what a comic can do.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315That sounds absolutely fascinating. Thank you for that recommendation. Uh, I was, I've already had that kind of, I wouldn't say it was at the top of my to be read list, but it was, I was aware of it as something that I definitely wanted to check out. So you've definitely bumped it up, up the list. So thank you so much for that. And thank you for coming onto the podcast and for telling us all about both your own story and getting us up to speed on everything that's. going on at the Cartoon Museum. Is there anything exciting, any new things happening this year that you'd like to tell us about for later on? You've got the Wallace and Gromit exhibition at the moment. Do you know what comes after that yet?
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311what comes after that is, a closely guarded secret at the
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315Okay, well let me know when it, once it's, shareable and I'll let all the listeners know on my, one of my kind of outros where I round up different bits and bobs and I'll let people Thank you so much. For coming onto the podcast and for sharing all your knowledge. It's been brilliant to chat to you.
squadcaster-1867_1_01-08-2024_153311It's been an absolute pleasure, Lucy. Makes me feel important, and I need that.
lucy--she-her-_1_01-08-2024_153315You are important.
Then we have it so great to hear from Steve about all the things going on in the cartoon museum. This episode took a little bit of a while to come out. And in the meantime, we have missed the annual conference at the cartoon museum, which is for comics, creators, anyone interested in building that into a profession or developing their practice in comics creation. So do look out for that in future years. That's every February. I can see on their website, they've got, a model making work workshop with Aardman studios this month, and also a webinar about the clangers, which is very exciting to me. so lots of content on there always being refreshed on their website. You don't have to be London-based to be able to access some of the brilliant resources and offers that they've got on. So do check them out there. There's a really interesting range of things available from the cartoon museum. Well, if I've been reading lately, I've been reading it's lonely at the center of the earth by Zoe. Thoroughgood another one of the books that I got for Christmas. It is. Amazing. It's so good. I'm actually having to hold myself back. I don't want to rush through it because there's so many things, different things in there to look at and explore and think through that. I think it needs a good, slow read. but it's so good. It makes you want to rush it. So yeah, I'm trying to hold back. I haven't quite finished yet, but yeah, very good. Really recommend that. The way that different themes and ideas are presented, I'm using different styles of artwork. It's just brilliant. I would definitely recommend that for an adult reader. That's it for me this week, it's been a bit of a busy week. So the episodes are a bit chaotic. I've had to one child's birthday last weekend, another child's birthday next weekend. So I do not think there's going to be an episode of comic boom, next week. we will probably have a skip a week. I I'm doing some interviews though, and I have the next few episodes, we'll be ready to go out in the two weeks, following that. So. Keep an eye out for those. Don't forget about us in the week off. As usual, if you'd like to support the podcast, you can do that by logging on to kofee.com forward slash Lucy SB that's K O hyphen F i.com forward slash lucy SP lots of small press comics, creators sell their comics on kofi.com. So it's always worth having a little bit of a browse. You might find something you have not seen before on there. And be able to buy directly from small press comics, creators. So it's just. It's an interesting. Alternative to Etsy, which is a lot of makers are moving away from now. So if you do want to buy direct from comics, creators, do you have little brows? You can also leave a review on whichever platform you listen on and buy, and you can share with your colleagues and networks. That is the most valuable thing you can do. It's always really appreciated. We'd love to grow our listener base and you can also follow me on Twitter slash ex. Um, at Lucy underscore, Bradley or follow the podcast on comic underscore boom underscore podcast. So you can follow, keep up to date with what episodes are coming out and get in touch with the podcast through all of those platforms. That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. My name is Lucy Starbuck, Bradley producer, and host of comic beam.
