Wombles, Sheep, Pigs - more comics by kids

This August I have been able to take part in the Waltham Forest Summer Scheme classes, which I usually miss because of being in Edinburgh. This has seen me spend six days in London, which I've been able to take advantage of by inviting Hev along and making a mini holiday of it. Of course it hasn't been without its complications, as the story of the smelly flat in Ilford will tell you (see previous blog). The above covers are from the final school, Chapel End, and the very first Parkside (also shown in a previous blog, in case you thought the kids were being really unimaginative).

These two comics are from the Waltham Forest schools Dawlish and Roger Ascham. Where we get our second complication of these sessions. At Dawlish, one of the teachers heard me talking to the pupils as they came in, and making a joke about how they looked like they were doing nazi salutes. She tok this so wrongly and out of context that she reported me to the organiser of the sessions, who wasn't on site herslef, who in turn took it up with Mandy, who has booked me to do the classes. For fear that I was in some way inappropriate, and in order that I could be allowed to continue doing the classes, this organiser insisted that Mandy sent another Grape employee to observe my classes. Crazy, and a cost to Mandy, which has infuriated us both. I feel wronged and insulted, but what can you do? Apparently it was saying the word 'nazi' in a school that freaked this idiot jobsworth (whose identity I never discovered) out. Christ knows how they teach World War 2 in that school. Apart from this inconvenience, the classes continued without event.

Plough Arts in Great Torrington Devon had me back, in person, after I'd done a Zoom class earlier in the year. Which brought up a bit more of the travel headache that I moaned about in the last blog. Getting back from a morning class in North Devon, on a Saturday afternoon, at the height of the summer holidays, took forever! Hey nonny nonny, it's good to do classes in person and I'm glad they had me in.

The red-tinged version of the cover is what it looked like when I snapped it on my phone. We were working under stage lights in the theatre, which just goes to show you how bright LED lights actually aren't.

Class Bento is a website that's brought me a few Zoom gigs over the last year. This week they paid me the ultimate compliment when John, the founder of the site, booked me for his brother Robin's birthday party. Half the attendees were in England, the other half in Australia, so we had the class at 7.30 in the morning. It went so well, they've booked me for another class, same time next week.

Colindale Library in North London have had me in before, three years ago, and it was great to be back. I was able to amalgamate this into another overnight stay with Hev, joining it into my Waltham Forest class the following day. Not interesting, but I thought you'd like a bit of colour.

Whitehall and George Tomlinson were two more primary schools in the Waltham Forest set, both of which produced great comics with the kids. The irony is that the kids will never see these front covers. Because we had no access to photocopiers in any of these schools, all they took away were their caricatures and the art they'd produced. Often I can send the coloured front covers to the pupils, if it's a ticketed event so we have the parents emails (eg the Plough Arts and Colindale Library kids will have received their colour covers). But the Waltham Forest kids come from all over and leave no contacts, so their covers have gone into the ether. But hey, you and I have seen them, so there's that.

The celebrities these 8 groups chose to star in my demonstration strip were Michael Jackson (twice), Robert Downey Junior, Donald Trump, Justin Bieber, Bruce Lee, Joe Biden, and The Queen.

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.