Newcastle, Gateshead, & Stockton LibrariesSummer 2014

COMICS

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IIntroductionIntroduction

Newcastle, Gateshead, and Stockton libraries joinedforces with local comics artists in summer 2014 to host agreat comics festival for children and young people. Thisscrapbook celebrates work created by everyone involvedand highlights their shared experiences, reflecting someof the enthusiasm and fun that was had by all.

Thanks to funding from Arts Council England, comicsartists engaged with young people across the North Eastregion, bringing comics to life and helping to create newones.

The festival linked with the British Library exhibition‘Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK’. OurLibraries ran a Comics Chaos competition to design acomic character and win a trip to London to visit theexhibition. A lucky group of winners, librarians and theyoung people taking part in the Art Heroes Summercomics’ residency travelled to London to enjoy a greatday. Comics artist Hannah Berry led a ‘hands on’illustration workshop and inspired all ready for entry tothe exhibition.

Newcastle City Library hosted its own comicsexhibition displaying local comics artwork during thefestival and creating more interest about comics eventsacross the north east.

An Anime Attacks summer social brought the festivalto a spectacular close, however, the work goes on andmore exciting new comics events are planned across theregion.

Judy ZajacService Specialist: Children & Adult Reading TeamNewcastle Libraries

© Tyne Bridge Publishing, 2015City LibraryNewcastle City Council

ISBN: 9781857952254

Published by City of Newcastle Upon TyneNewcastle LibrariesTyne Bridge Publishing

www.tynebridgepublishing.co.uk

Edited by Lydia Wysocki, Applied Comics Etc

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,stored or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in anyway or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording or otherwise) without the prior permission of thepublishers. 3

Introduction

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PartnersPartners

Art Heroes

Art Heroes create all-ages comic books and engage youngpeople in literacy and creativity activities using the comicsmedium. We (Art Heroes writer Daniel Clifford and artist LeeRobinson) worked with Gateshead and Newcastle Libraries toengage 10 to 18 year olds in creating their own characters andcomic strips.

We began with 1 hour outreach sessions in schools aroundGateshead and Newcastle. These sessions involved anintroduction to the comics medium, tips on creating engagingcomics characters, and helped students create their owncharacters.

From these sessions we identified a number of youngpeople who could benefit from taking their comics work further.We based this on their interest in comics, drawing, and writing,and their enthusiasm for the sessions. These young peoplewere invited to a 6-week summer school at Gateshead CentralLibrary or Newcastle City Library. Each session focused on adifferent element of developing a comic: creating characters,writing a story, learning about visual storytelling, then pencilling,inking and lettering a comic.

All participants worked towards an Explore Arts Award(QAF Entry Level 3). This involved looking at the work andprocesses of comics professionals and Art Heroes as anorganisation, as well as taking part in workshops, completingtheir comics and reflecting on their experiences.

The residency gave young people opportunities to workwith relatable and professional local artists. They developed anunderstanding of an artistic medium they were not familiar with,created their own work, and achieved an accredited award. Theconfidence and excitement of the young people increased asthe weeks went on. It was great to see young people trulycommitting to achieving the very best work they could andhelping their peers do the same.

The completed comic is available to download from librarywebsites and ArtHeroes.co.uk.

GatesheadCentral Library and NewcastleCity Library

June-August2014

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Art Heroes

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Kapow! and Mythical Maze

The workshops Kapow! Make your own Comics and MythicalMaze were led by the Icelandic illustrator and cartoonist IngiJensson. Ingi ran his own comics school in Iceland, and whenhe moved to Stockton began offering courses in schools andlibraries under the name TeesToons (www.teestoons.com). Ingijumped at the opportunity to be involved with Comics Chaos tofurther his goal of bringing the joy of comic making to thechildren of the North East.

Ingi Jensson worked with Year 6 pupils in four primary schoolsin and around Stockton to deliver a series of comic-makingworkshops. Through the workshop Ingi explored the variouscharacters in mythical fairy tales, the magic of visual storytellingand how to create a comic from script to sketch and all the wayto a finished inked comic.

To achieve this Ingi created a booklet that he could workthrough with the children so that within the two hour workshopthey had built on their skills and created their own comic strip.After the session Ingi gave each school a PDF copy of their owncomic which the class had created.

These schools workshops were so popular that in August Ingidelivered another four sessions in libraries for children aged 5to 12 years old, adapting the same content for these youngerartists.

The overall aim of Stockton Libraries is to provide a quality,relevant, accessible and modern service which is responsive tothe needs and lifestyles of the users it aims to serve. StocktonLibraries wanted to be involved in this project as we wanted tooffer new and creative opportunities in a shared celebration ofgraphic art. These sessions brought the magic of comic makingto over 200 children in Stockton-on-Tees and opened up to themthe inner workings of practical comic making.

StocktonLibraries

June-August2014

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Kapow! and Mythical Maze

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Eleanor Taggart Amy Wilson

Emma Lowry

Comics Unmasked

The winners of our Comics Chaos Competition to design theirown comics character won a trip to London to visit the ComicsUnmasked exhibition at the British Library.

The 2014 Comics Unmasked exhibition was the UK’s largestever exhibition of mainstream and underground comics. It wascurated by Adrian Edwards, John Harris Dunning, and PaulGravett, and was an ideal opportunity to link our thriving comicsscene in the North East with this showcase in London.

Our competition winners had an early start to travel to London,then were welcomed by the British Library’s LearningProgrammes Manager. They toured the Comics Unmaskedexhibition and worked with comics artist Hannah Berry to createtheir own collaborative comics.

This visit to Comics Unmasked was much more than a dayout. It was a chance to work with a leading comics artist and tounderstand more about the history of British comics from itsearliest pioneers to today’s digital innovators. We hope thatexploring the challenging and complex world of comics in thisway helped inspire our competition winners to continue theircomics success.

Quote from Abi Barber, British Library Learning ProgrammesManager:

What a lovely group it was today! It was a pleasure meeting youall and I hope you enjoyed your visit to the Library. I’ve readeveryone’s collaborative comic strips – I think they’re fantastic!

The BritishLibrary

6th August2014

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Comics Unmasked

Geek-Con

The Anime Attacks committee of Marie Scowen, Emma Robson,Billie Wilson, Liam Taylor, Alfie Bungay, Michael Larkin, CraigDixon, Laura Hillary, Aaron Dimes, Daniel Dixon, James Mercer,Emma Fordy, Liam Michael Yates and Gateshead LibrarianAndy Hodgkinson created Geek-Con to engage all ages withcomic books and libraries.

The convention brought comic books, sci-fi, fantasy, videogames, manga , anime and more together for people to enjoyand explore. On the day we had several special guests includingcomic book creator Robert Deas, manga artist Chie Kutsuwadaand sci-fi novelist Joe Kipling. We also hosted talks on suchdiverse topics as Doctor Who and guests’ geeky influences, plusa costume contest, quizzes, game shows and geek foodworkshops. Over 300 people attended and we received somegreat feedback:

Had a great time today! Met some epic cosplayers before I gotthere and walked up with them... on the tea duels... never teaduelled before... didn't even know such a thing existed but thereyou go... dressed as a Storm Trooper... a very short StormTrooper. All in all pretty good day! Totally coming back nextyear!!!!

Twas a fun little convention!

Had a great time, the dancing at the end was loads of fun

GatesheadCentral Library

9th August2014

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Geek-Con

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Canny Comic Con Comics Chaos Creative Collaboration

The CCCCCCC was a one-day free drop-in event for everyone.People of all ages and all degrees of comics-reading andcomics-making experience were involved.

CCCCCCC involved a variety of inventive comics-relatedcollaborative drawing activities including Broken Telephone,Redraw-a-Comic, and art jam. The day culminated in afreewheeling knockout debate about the Best Comics That YouProbably Haven’t Read Yet, in which speakers tried to convincethe audience of the underappreciated merits of comics that mostpeople probably hadn’t yet read (but perhaps should!).

The Canny Comic Con got involved with Comics Chaosbecause it seemed like a fun project worth supporting. We’realways keen to help get folks talking about comics and makingcomics. We always like to try new ideas: this time, with thealways-brilliant support of the Library, we decided to gettechnologically adventurous and set up a live table-cam andelectronic voting system to help make our debate reallyparticipative and engaging.

The Canny Comic Con is a mutating series of entirely freecomics-focused events organised by volunteers and hosted byNewcastle City Library. All Canny Comic Con events are asinventive and inclusive as possible. Our inaugural event in 2011was the first comics festival in the North East for fifteen years.

Newcastle CityLibrary

9th August2014

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Canny Comic Con Comics Chaos Creative Collaboration

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Use Comics! An infographics workshop

Newspapers, websites, and documentaries love using graphs,symbols, and pictures to present information. Do theseinfographics help us understand complicated information?* Arethey a way of playing tricks with numbers?** Is anything thatcombines numbers, words, and pictures an infographic?***

Newcastle Science Comic and Applied Comics Etc ran aworkshop about infographics and our participants decided that:*sometimes **often ***no. We used examples from digital andprint media to identify exactly what makes good, bad, andmisleading infographics. Our infographicers were great atspotting what it is that makes an infographic an infographic:they’re not pictures, they’re not graphs, and they’re not comics,but infographics often use some of these elements.

We also investigated what comics can teach us aboutcombining words and pictures, and how to present complexinformation in appealing and understandable ways. By the timeit came to making their own infographics our infographicers (ifwe keep writing it it’ll become a real word, right?) were rathertoo good at not exactly telling lies with information, but certainlybeing selective about what they chose to emphasise.

This was a workshop where you didn’t have to be good atmaths or art. It was about asking questions about informationthat is presented to you, and deciding what information you wantto present to other people. We aimed this workshop at age 14and over as it needed some experience of reading graphs, andthis turned out to be about right for a general interest workshop.In future workshops we’d like to try focussing on one subjectarea or try working with different age groups.

Applied Comics Etc was founded by Lydia Wysocki, buildingon the Asteroid Belter: The Newcastle Science Comic projectshe led with a team of seven editors. Applied Comics Etccontinues to work as a team to harness the power of comics andapply it to education, engagement, and awesomeness.

Newcastle CityLibrary

9th August2014

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Use Comics! An infographics workshop

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As part of the North East Comics Chaos festival, NewcastleLibraries hosted an exhibition of original comic art by nationaland local artists.

The artwork – kindly loaned by members of the localcommunity – included sketches by Grandville and Batman artistBryan Talbot, V for Vendetta artist David Lloyd and WalkingDead artist Charlie Adlard. Also on display were original inkedpages by Hulk artist Ed McGuinness and Star Wars and 2000ADartist Cam Kennedy.

From the North East we had VIZ artist Nigel Maughan’ssketches and VIZ memorabilia, and Jack Fallows’ originalAsteroid Belter: The Newcastle Science Comic cover.

Newcastle CityLibrary

16-31 August2014

Comics Chaos Exhibition Comics Chaos Exhibition

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Anime Attacks: Charlyvonkarma

This web comics workshop was for anyone who has everwondered ‘how on earth do I start a web comic?’ The aim wasto show people of any age or artistic ability how to create a webcomic. The workshop was hosted by artist Charlyvonkarma, akaCharlotte Fletcher.

Charlyvonkarma led us through three intense hours focusingon the craft of cartooning. We started by creating charactersand received some great tips on how to draw them. Then thesession looked at making your our own comic panels, andexamined the world of comics from Marvel/DC superheroes toindependent slice of life comics. We also looked at how topublish your comics online, what software to use, and the bestonline sites to publish your comics.

GatesheadCentral Library

21st August2014

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Anime Attacks: Charlyvonkarma

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Do you want to be the next Stan Lee?

Comics legend Stan Lee is a key figure in the comics industryso was an easy choice as the inspiration for our workshop with13-16 year olds.

‘Do you want to be the next Stan Lee?’ was an in-depthcomic-making course during the summer holidays. We aimedto reach teenage comics creators and to help them bring theirexisting skills to a new level, whilst challenging them with newideas and approaches to their established ways.

The course was led by Icelandic illustrator and cartoonist IngiJensson. Ingi’s passion for comic making began at an early agewith comics such as Asterix and Tintin. For seven years Ingiworked solely as a comic maker for various Icelandicnewspapers and magazines as well as running his own comic-making school for three years. Ingi is passionate about helpingyoung people to develop their skills and igniting enthusiasm andcreativity in young people around comics. In this workshop Ingiset group assignments and then worked individually with eachparticipant.

Stockton Libraries exist to serve our community and providea welcoming environment, open and free to all. As a libraryservice we have moved on: we still do the books bit, ensuringthat we always have the very latest titles, and we do so muchmore. Our library events run throughout the year with somethingfor everyone. This is why we wanted to provide young peoplewith the opportunity to engage with Comics Chaos and have theopportunity to explore and develop their own skills.

During the workshop individuals broke their boundaries andexpanded their horizons. We challenged their working methodsand introduced the young people to digital drawing equipmentthat many comics artists use today in their practice. It wasencouraging to see that Teesside has many future comics artistsin its midst.

StocktonCentral Library

22nd August2014

Do you want to be the next Stan Lee?

22 23John Lee Taggart

Anime Attacks Summer Social

The Anime Attacks Summer Social was the finale for the ComicsChaos festival. It was organized by Gateshead’s Anime Attackscommittee with the simple aim of having a fun end to the festival.

The event featured comic book inspired costume contests,video game tournaments, geek foods such as the Harry Potterinspired butter beer, manga art sessions with artist Ingi Jensson,and karaoke and quizzes. The event was well attended by over80 young people aged 12 – 23.

We had some great feedback about the Anime AttacksSummer Social on Facebook:

Today was absolutely amazing!~ Thank you so much for runningthis, I am very much looking forward to the next one!

Had fun!

Today was brilliant! Thank you to everyone who put thistogether, can't wait for the next one!

Thanks for such an amazing day guys!

GatesheadCentral Library

29th August2014

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Anime Attacks Summer Social

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The young audience were in for a treat when Mr Donald retoldthe story of VIZ’s beginnings, emergence, and success. Simongave us the ups and the downs, the shed where it all began,and colourful reminiscences of a buzzing Newcastle.

Some of audience remembered Newcastle back in the day,when they had hung about the splendid Handyside Arcade(sadly, no longer with us) waiting to buy the latest copy of VIZfrom the Kard Bar.

Leah Chan:It was amazing to hear how you had to type everything over andover again and use carbon paper. It was really funny whenSimon said the Central Library got a photocopier and then theywere in business!

Newcastle CityLibrary

August 2014

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An evening with Simon Donald An evening with Simon Donald

Gateshead Libraries hosted the fourth Anime Attacks: JapaneseCultural Festival. Gateshead Central Library has one of thelargest collections of Japanese manga comics in the UK.Gateshead also has many links to Japan, which inspired us tocelebrate Japanese culture. Over 350 people of all agesattended the weekend which was organised by GatesheadLibraries’ young people’s group: The Anime Attacks Committee.

The convention kicked off with a celebration of Japanesecinema, screening the last film from the legendary Japaneseanimator Hayao Miyazaki and the comedy Instant Swamp. Themain convention day packed a lot of activities and chilling intoits eight hours. We featured a Japanese Idol pop concertcourtesy of J Pop Go, art sessions with Ingi Jensson and KateHolden, Japanese Calligraphy with Jayamini de Silva, fooddemonstrations and workshops with renowned cook JillWeatherburn, parasol making, Japanese soft drink and candysushi workshops, quizzes, Japanese video gaming, a fourteenmetre manga mural, costume and talent contests, East Asiancrafts, steampunk-inspired tea duelling, Japanese languageculture sessions by Newcastle University, a ball pit, lots of fancydress and much much more!

GatesheadLibrary

24th-25thOctober 2014

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Anime Attacks: Japanese Cultural Festival Anime Attacks: Japanese Cultural Festival

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Art Heroes residency, Gateshead Central Library andNewcastle City Library, June-August 2014

Daniel CliffordLee Robinson

Kapow! and Mythical Maze comics workshops,Stockton Libraries, June-August 2014

Ingi JenssonLucy Carlton-WalkerMill Lane Primary SchoolPentland Primary SchoolBillingham South Community Primary SchoolHarrow Gate Primary School

Comics Unmasked visit, The British Library, 6thAugust 2014

Hannah BerryAbi BarberJudy Zajac

Competition Winners:Emma Lowry (Miss Chi)John Taggart (Dr Fuzuii)Eleanor Taggart (Patrick Punk)Amy Wilson (Mortal Stone)

Geek-Con, Gateshead Central Library, 9th August2014

Gateshead LibraryAnime Attacks Committee:

Liam TaylorLiam Michael YatesMarie ScowenCraig DixonJames MercerEmma FordyEmma RobsonLaura HillaryDaniel DixonMichael LarkinAaron DimesAlfie BungayBillie Wilson

Geek-Con, Gateshead Central Library, 9th August2014

Gateshead Library Staff:

Sandra ClemensCaroline ElderMoira DawsonMarie WissonAdam TaylorJohn ConnollyRachael Horton Chris MyhillAndy Hodgkinson

Other contributors:Robert DeasChie KutsuwadaJoe Kipling

Canny Comic Con Comics Chaos CreativeCollaboration, Newcastle City Library, 9th August2014

Canny Comic ConventionAlexi Conman

Use Comics! An infographics workshop,Newcastle City Library, 9th August 2014

Lydia WysockiChristian Perfect

Anime Attacks, Gateshead Central Library, 21stAugust 2014

Charlotte Fletcher aka Charlyvonkarma

An evening with Simon Donald, Newcastle CityLibrary, August 2014

Simon DonaldLeah Chan

Contributors Contributors

Staff of Newcastle, Gateshead, and StocktonLibrariesTyne Bridge PublishingArts Council England

Newcastle, Gateshead, and Stockton libraries joined forces with localcomics artists in summer 2014 to host a great comics festival for childrenand young people.

This book celebrates work created by everyone involved and highlightstheir shared experiences, reflecting some of the enthusiasm and fun thatwas had by all.

Thanks to funding from Arts Council England, comics artists engaged withyoung people across the North East region, bringing existing comics to lifeand helping to create new ones.

9 781857 952254