Oinking Pigs & Huge Coke Volcanoes - final kids comics of 2022

 

A busy year of Comic Art Masterclasses, on and offline, rounded off with a fair cross section of what I get up to. We have an online corporate Christmas party (their live party having been called off because of the Omicron variant of Covid causing folks the collywobbles), a Jewish primary school at Hannukah, more of those damned Among Us characters, a return to the first school I visited after last year's lockdown, and the start of an ongoing project which will continue into 2022.

This pair of comics were produced with kids at Hasmonean Primary, a Jewish school in Barnet, where the classes too place, interestingly, on the last day of Chanukah (on the first night of which, for the record, me and The Socks did Dean Friedman's Zoom show, which was a mini Hannukah special. There you go, both spellings covered, everyone's happy).  At one point in the day, the kids had to "bench", a phrase which I'd not come across before. It's a recitation that you do, basically saying grace after a meal. I live and learn.

Eastern Green Juniors in Coventry was a good one to revisit, as it holds the distinction of being the first class I visited in person, in November 2020, after the first lockdown. At time of writing we've been out of the second lockdown for six months and school visits have become almost normal, though we have to wear masks in corridors. And, at time of writing, the Omicron variant of Covid has just been detetected and is now the big sensation, spreading twice as fast as its predecessors while having milder effects. Schools are being affected by people having to isolate when they get a positive test, but we're all double vaxxed now (I had by booster shot on December 11th) so as safe as we're ever likely to be.

The big tiger face comes from a school in Millton Keynes where we are doing a project where the kids interview local residents for oral history work, then turn their stories into comic strips. We shall return to that project in the new year.

And we ended the year with perhaps the driest title ever. Wonde is a computer system used by people working in education, as the employees of Impact Ed all are. I did their corporate Christmas party on Zoom, and jolly good fun it was too. I am delighted to report I went away none the wiser as to what a Wonde Error might be, let's hope I never have to know.

The celebrities these five groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip (MK group didn't do that bit) were Ed Sheeran, Mayim Blalik, Freddie Mercury, Ariana Grande, and William Shakespeare.

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.