Hottest Hamster In Town - new comics by kids in Toulouse

I've just spent a week in Colomiers, a small town near Toulouse, teaching kids in the International School Toulouse, Ecole Paul Bert and Ecole Victor Hugo how to write and draw comics. Above you see the front covers of the comics each group took home with them.

You might think it's taking coals to Newcastle getting the man from the Beano to teach comics in the land of BD, but I was mostly teaching British pupils, or pupils from bilingual families, and their awareness of comics was about the same as the kids back home. Only a few had been to the magnificent BD collection in the Pavillon Blanc arts centre in Colomiers, but hopefully I've changed that.

Some interesting themes seem to keep re-appearing, including fast food and psycho bunnies, but these were merely the most popular suggestions from the hundreds they came up with between them.

When asked to suggest a celebrity to tread on a worm (in my famous demonstration exercise) they went for Michael Jackson (twice), Brad Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Keith Lemon (twice), Roger Moore, and, beating Roger to the oddest suggestion of the week, George Washington.

Obviously distance is no object, so if you want me to come to your schools and teach your kids how to do what I've been doing for the last 25 years, do please get in touch.



More comics from pupils in Cambridge, Croydon, Largs, Glasgow, and Henley, and in  Croydon, Richmond and Glasgow, in  Chorley, Newcastle Under Lyme, Borehamwood and Henley, in Hertfordshire and Weston Super Mare, in Cardiff, Falkirk, Birmingham and rural Devon. You'll find many more if you scour this blog.