Peppa Pig Frenzy - comics by kids in Dudley, Birmingham, Baldock

 

The Peppa Pig pandemic reached critical status this week, as kids continued to come up with pig-related titles for their group comics, despite my best efforts. These were from Blowers Green Primary in Dudley.

Somerville Primary in Small Green, Birmingham, who were kind to have me in for a day in a half, managed to reach Peak Peppa by not only coming up with two Peppa title out of the three comics we produced, but by virtually naming two exactly the same! I show them the comics produced by previous groups and, even though I try not to draw attention to them, sometimes they are overwhelmingly influenced by ones they spot. 

So it was that we went from The Day Peppa Pig Ate Bacon to the following day's Peppa Pig Eats Bacon. Sigh. Lovely kids, great classes, all the same. And I'm rather pleased by the variety of not-bacon Bacons I found to put on the cover (for the record: two Francises and a Kevin).

My pre and post pandemic experience came full circle on Saturday with my return to Baldock Arts Centre in Herts. It was the very last place I did a Comic Art Masterclass, in March 2020, during the week before lockdown. Though the kids had to be socially distanced, and it's far from sure that things are over (Delta and Lambda variants abound at time of writing), it was good to feel back to normal, and for this class to symbolise some sort of partial closure on the past 18 month's novelty. 

The celebrities these seven groups chose to star in my demonstration strip were Michael Jackson, Billie Eilish, Tom Holland, Snoop Dogg, Stan Lee, Boris Johnson, and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who, and graphic novels adapted from Shakespeare, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He is the host of the podcast Comic Cuts The Panel Show.