Carrots, Cucumbers, Zombies - this week's comics by kids

A busy week in schools, with a lot of travelling, saw me delivering my Comic Art Masterclasses in Swansea, Rhos, Birmingham, and, in the instance above, a primary school in Chipping Campden which is in a bit of Gloucestershire so far over it's very nearly in Warwickshire. Between them the four groups over the two days I spent there came up with some very inspiring front cover ideas.

These were also from said school, namely St James & Ebrington, which has the bizarre distinction of being two different schools, in different villages with different postcodes a five mile drive apart, who maintain the conviction that they are in fact one school. I could never fathom why this is the case, it sounded like Orwellian Double Speak whenever any teacher tried to explain it. But they're two schools that are in fact one school. Go, as they say, figure.

St Josephs in Swansea had me back to teach their year 5s, and have the double distinction of not only being the first school to have already booked me for 2019, but also they were the first school this year to come up with a Donald Trump themed title for their comic. They won't be the last.

Mountain Movers is an organisation working with home-schooled kids for whom I did a one-off class in Rhos, in the South Wales valleys. The reason I've drawn that heavily-dressed kid on the cover is that, for reasons best known to themselves, a clump of the kids insisted on keeping their hoodies and hats on throughout the class, regardless of how warm it was. Home-schooled kids, with whom I've done a number of classes all round the country, are always an interesting bunch. The thing they have in common being their not being used to sitting still and listening. But child-control challenges aside, they did sterling work and were fun to teach.

Whizz Kids are another novel group, which I've worked with before and with whom I'll be working again over the coming months. The kids are all in wheelchairs, hence the name, and some have a variety of physical disabilities. All good to work with, though to be honest this wasn't the easiest class to run, by dint of it sharing an echoey sports hall with a Virtual Reality Gaming experience which the kids were taken out of the class at intervals to go and do, meaning that, for most of the session, I only had a third of the kids in my class together, and no single kid actually got the whole of the Comic Art Masterclass. Whatever, we managed to make a comic at the end of it all, and they had a fun afternoon.

The celebrities these eight groups chose for my demonstration strip were Donald Trump (four times!), Olly Murrs, Simon Cowell, Declan Donnelly, and Ronaldo.

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. 

Comic Art Masterclasses open to the public:
Feb 12 - Zion Bristol
Feb 13 - Salisbury Arts
Feb 14 - Baldocks Arts & Heritage Centre, Herts
Feb 15 - Angles Theatre, Wisbech
Feb 16 - Bexleyheath & Erith Libraries
March 17 - Prema Arts, Uley, Gloucs