Usually when I write up a blog about the comics I've done with kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses, I include a batch of six or eight covers. Not this week. This week I did six solid days in a row, with two classes each day, so you're getting 12 glorious front covers...
As recorded in a couple of other blog posts (if you really want to read about the hotels and me flogging books) I managed to string together a series of art centre classes in Newtownards, Omagh, Enniskillem Belfast, Limavady and Larne, and here are their end products. Or at the very least the front covers. I'm delighted to report that every class was a sellout, which is testament to the splendid organisation of all these local art centres, and how well they seem to be supported by kids and families.
Strule Arts in Omagh is somewhere I've been coming for a long time now. I recall the Socks played here, when we were touring with Kevin Quantum the magician, a good decade or more ago. Classes here are always popular, Shrek notwithstanding.
The Ardhowen Theatre in Enniskillen is another venue I've visited a number of times, four or five it must be by now. I'm not sure these were the most inspired titles or covers, but my caveat is that I was developing a cold at this point in the week, and this was the day I was feeling my most drained.
A return visit to The MAC in Belfast, following classes there last summer. The Socks also played there, back during the first Shakespeare tour. These two were probably my favourite titles and covers to draw.
This was my first visit to Limavady, and its fine shiny new arts centre. And, though both classes were excellent, and sold out to overflowing - this was the first place where we took advantage of the reserve list, to leave no seat empty - I have to say the titles might not have been the most inspiring. So I took the opportunity with one of them to just plug my new book. Did I mention I sold loads of books this week, and could have sold more if I hadn't run out of stock?
The final classes of the week were in Larne, another first time visit for me, and two delightful classes and titles to end the week on. Sturg Buskin was a young lad's attempt to write "Starbucks King". As is regularly the case, the ensuing nonsense title proved the funniest title they had to choose from. And in tribute, I used his handwriting style to draw the logo. The Day My House Grew Legs And Decided To Run 50km Into The Desert And Started A New Family With A Cactus is one of the first super-long titles we've had in ages. Again, once the kids hear something like this read out (from the 30-or-so titles they give each other to choose from in a knockout vote) the silliness of the title's length - and in this case my discomfort in reading it because I was, by this time, just about to finally lose my voice having done the whole class in a croak - is irresistibly funny.
The celebrities these twelve groups chose to star in my demonstration strip were John Cena, Cristiano Ronaldo (twice), Mr Beast, Elon Musk, Tom Holland, Rick Astley, Albert Einstein, Ed Sheeran and Simon Cowell.
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