Small Brain of Donald Trump - comics by kids

Edrych! Ysgrifennais y penawdau yn y Gymraeg. Pa mor glyfar ydw i? Gallaf ddefnyddio Google Translate. My travels in schools this week have taken me from Swansea to Swindon, via Malvern. The pupils have been from years 5 and 6 mostly, with a cluster of year 7s thrown in. And no-one is more obsessed by Donald Trump than those kids. I cannot remember knowing an American President's name when I was their age, so the big orange baby has clearly done some good.

As usual, some front covers get drawn at lightning speed while the class is going on, and a couple get the luxury of break time for me to put some detail in. I think we're looking at a couple of speedy ones here. Good to see that my childhood drawings of Howard The Duck have lodged in the memory and I can draw him without really thinking. Sadly everyone thinks it's Donald. That name again!



Now I can't give you too  much detail, but one of these three schools that I visited this week had an unexpected event disrupting their day. They had a bomb scare. It was handled impeccably, with 500 primary school pupils being marshalled through to the hall and kept entertained by the Deputy Head for 20 minutes while the police inspected the premises, totally unseen by the pupils who remained oblivious throughout. By the end of the day the kids had totally forgotten about the unusual event, and none got to know what had really been going on. It was, needless to say, a hoax. There is, it seems, a lot of this sort of thing, comprising pre-recorded bomb-hoax messages phoned through to dozens of schools at the same time. To quite what end, apart from demonstrating how good our schools and police are at handling these things, I can't quite see.

And here comes Donald Trump again. This teacher had already introduced a Trump-discussion ban in class, because her year 5s won't shut up about him. So when this title came up, and was obviously going to win the selection (we choose the best from their 30-odd suggestions), she went from face-palm to head-in-hands. Were we this aware of President Nixon when I was their age?

The celebrities these groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip featured, for the first time this year, Simon Cowell (who used to be suggested in almost every class and chosen 15% of the time but got deposed by President Baby last year), as well as Donald Trump, Ariana Grande, Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian and Harry Potter.

Comic Art Masterclasses coming up in 2017:

Mar 18 - Prema Arts, Gloucestershire
April 5 - Rickmansworth Library
April 10 - Zion, Bristol
May 1 - Chiddingstone Castle Kent 
May 7 - Dorchester Festival
May 11 - Guernsey Literary Festival
Jun 4 - Martlets Hall Burgess Hill 

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here.