Grandma Watches Dubai Chocolate ASMR - comics by kids in Newcastle +

With many thanks to the Northern Childrens Book Festival, I've just completed a whole week up in Newcastle and around delivering Comic Art Masterclasses. And don't the kids' comics look wonderful?

Having driven up on Monday, the Festival very kindly put me up in the Hilton Hotel in Newcastle, from where I drove to my week's various locations. Thanks to an accident on a road en route that meant Tuesday morning started with a two hour journey to Redcar, where the school I was at hadn't got the message about how my Comic Art Masterclass works (two hour sessions with up to 30 kids in a class, so they all take away a comic they've made together and get a caricature by me). Instead they got four x one hour talks, to groups of 50 at a time, didn't produce anything or take anything away, but they seemed happy enough. They even got a nice drawing on the flipchart to keep.

Wednesday's classes were at two libraries, Sedgefield and Pelton (both near Durham), where the kids made a couple of smashing comics, while leaning very heavily into meme and kids' favourite words territory. Ooh, the effort I have to go to to try and not have "67" in every comic title, and scribbled in all the backgrounds, this term.

Thorp and Blaydon on Thursday were a couple of schools where the kids once more came up with the goods. Italian Brainrot notwithstanding, they were actually mostly quite original.

 My favourite titles of the week were dreamed up by the children of Bede Academy in Blyth, and I'm not too disappointed by the covers I came up with.

Ahead of my long drive back to Chepstow, I did a final one-off Saturday morning class at Gateshead Central Library where, as you can see from the flipchart I drew, they're celebrating their 100th birthday.

The celebrities these 11 groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip (yes, eleven, cos all four of Tuesday's one hour talks included my demonstration strip) were: Angry Ginge (four times - he's on I'm A Celebrity, your honour), Ariana Grande, Michael Jackson, Tom Holland, Donald Trump, Ice Spice, Beyonce, and Alan Carr.

My Books And Where To Find Them...

Richard The Third (Colour) Paperback • signed	Doctors Who? Colouring Paperback • signed	Socks Do Shakespeare Paperback	Kids Comics Annual 2026 Paperback
Richard  The Third (bw) Paperback • signed	Findlay  Macbeth Paperback • signed	Prince of  Denmark Street Paperback • signed	Midsummer Night's  Dream Team Paperback • signed
Shakespeare Omnibus Paperback • signed	Comic Tales From The Bible Paperback • signed	Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories Paperback • signed	Space Elain Paperback • signed
Book Of Esther	Who Notes	Sweet Smell Of Sockcess	Attack Of The Sausages
My 1975 Diary Calendar	Colouring Books Paperback • signed	Scottish Falsetto Socks Annual	Tales Of Nambygate

Colouring Books: Doctors Who, Hollywood Legends, Punk, Cult TV, Eurovision Vol 1, Eurovision Vol 2, Eurovision Best Of British & Irish, 1960s Pop, 1970s Pop, 1980s Pop,  1990s Pop, 2020s Pop, Bowie, Scottish Pop, Royalty, Rom Coms 

Material Pickle In A Material World - new comics by kids

Busy busy busy, more schools, more comics, and many miles covered. From Wincanton to Wood Green, Berkshire to St Johns Wood. Actually, come to think of it, that's about the least travelling I've done this month.

For King Arthur's School in Wincanton I agreed to do three classes in a day, rather than my usual two, for a slight hike in my fee. Exhausting, but I managed it, and the kids came up with some great end results.

Wincanton extra. Like I say, three classes.

Downe House School in Berkshire is a boarding school that was attended by Miranda Hart, Marina Hyde, and Claire Balding, among many other successful and well connected old girls. So you can imagine how pleasant it was, and how favourably the school dinners compared to any other place I've visited recently. In the foyer they have a photo of one of their spin-off establishments that's recently opened. It's in Riyadh.

Wood Green Library was another of my experiments in self ticketing, and a successful one. 12 in the morning class, 28 in the afternoon. I look forward to seeing how much I come away with after Eventbrite have taken their chunk.

This comic was made by the attendees at the birthday party for a young lad in well-heeled St Johns Wood. My class works well as a party entertainment, I've discovered over the years, and these gigs are fun to do, if only to get a glimpse at how the other half live. The very nicely appointed house actually has a slightly smaller square footage than ours. Hev looked it up on Right Move and found it cost, literally, ten times what ours did. Location location location.

The celebrities these eight groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Gordon Ramsay, Eminem, Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Mr Beast (twice), and Donald Trump.

My Books And Where To Find Them...

Richard The Third (Colour) Paperback • signed	Doctors Who? Colouring Paperback • signed	Socks Do Shakespeare Paperback	Kids Comics Annual 2026 Paperback
Richard  The Third (bw) Paperback • signed	Findlay  Macbeth Paperback • signed	Prince of  Denmark Street Paperback • signed	Midsummer Night's  Dream Team Paperback • signed
Shakespeare Omnibus Paperback • signed	Comic Tales From The Bible Paperback • signed	Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories Paperback • signed	Space Elain Paperback • signed
Book Of Esther	Who Notes	Sweet Smell Of Sockcess	Attack Of The Sausages
My 1975 Diary Calendar	Colouring Books Paperback • signed	Scottish Falsetto Socks Annual	Tales Of Nambygate

Colouring Books: Doctors Who, Hollywood Legends, Punk, Cult TV, Eurovision Vol 1, Eurovision Vol 2, Eurovision Best Of British & Irish, 1960s Pop, 1970s Pop, 1980s Pop,  1990s Pop, 2020s Pop, Bowie, Scottish Pop, Royalty, Rom Coms