Free Cheese For Sale - a bumper bundle of comics by kids

Once more the summer term has seen me busy working with primary school pupils presenting my Comic Art Masterclasses. Have a look here at what they've produced in the past week and a bit.



The batches above and below come mostly from afive day run in the primary schools of Lincolnshire, organised by the wonderful Bourne Grammar, with one foray into Cambridgeshire and to Malmesbury and North Somerset. An excellent variety of inspiring titles, I'm sure you'll agree (my favourites must be I Want My Head Chopped Off By A Worm, Alpaca Alcohol Swipe and My Grandad Trumped At The Dinosaur Sale - did I mention these are all years 5 & 6?) and the contents inside are equally good. The future of comics is safe in their hands.



When I ask them to name a celebrity with which I can do my "treads on a worm" demonstration routine, I get 4 suggestions from the room from which we choose their favourite, this being the name I make a subtle note of on each cover. What I never record is the names that get rejected, but I can report anecdotally from this week that Simon Cowell is suggested 90% of the time, it is a very rare class that doesn't mention him, and Bob Marley continues to crop up a lot, as does the Queen. In the past week, however, old favourite Michael Jackson didn't get a single mention. Maybe he was never that big in Lincolnshire.

The celebs they ended up choosing were Simon Cowell (three times), Keith Lemon, Boris Johnson, Bob Marley, Johnny Depp, Ed Sheeran, Rolf Harris, Emilie Sande, Miranda Hart, and (most original suggestion of the week) Zlatan Ibrahimovic who, I'm assured, is a footballer. Like I would know what he looks like.

If you want to experience my Comic Art Masterclass, which is suitable for anyone aged 7 or over (there's no maximum age limit), I'll be doing classes at London's South Bank Centre this summer as part of Beanotown - see details here - and in August I'll be appearing in various libraries in and around Edinburgh, of which more details soon. And you can see me in the Lake District in October, stay tuned for that update. In the meantime you can always book me to come to your local school. Email and we'll take it from there. Details of my class, and more examples and testimonials, are on the website comicfestival.co.uk.