A clutch of comic covers made with classes of kids in Carnforth (a long drive away), Rochdale (a long drive away), Colwyn Bay (actually mostly not kids), and a flipchart from Saudi Arabia. Yes, a tale comes with it.
Carnforth High in Lancashire is a school that I've visited before, making it part of a trip to the Lakes Comic Festival (which it is near to). This time I did the whole journey just for the one school, which is the sort of thing that's hard to say no to, but stacks up the miles and wear & tear on the car, and is quite tiring. What was also a little hard work was that I'd agreed, against my usual better judgment, to do five x one hour sessions with five groups of 30 kids each. That's 150 kids in a day.
The way I did it was by dividing my usual Comic Art Masterclass in two, and a bit. So group one got the first half of the class, with the entertaining warm up, designing their own characters, and making up the title for the comic. Then group two got the slightly less exciting "how to put your characters into a comic strip" demonstration, drew their comic strips, and got their caricatures drawn. I repeated this with groups three and four, which gave me the components for two finished comics. Group five got the start of the class and the demonstration strip bit, but nothing that went into a finished product. Exhausting, but an interesting experiment. I will try not to do it again cos I don't think it leaves anyone feeling satisfied.
Denbighshire Art Society is distinguished by the fact that it's not in Denbighshire. It's in Colwyn Bay, and I have Hev's cousin Phillip's wife Wendy to thank for arranging this one off class comprising mostly the members of the art group, but also a few of their kids. Great fun, and a chance to visit Hev's mum and to see Hev's dad. (It was to be our last chance to see Dennis, who died a week later).
Kingsway Park in Rochdale was a nice last minute booking for me, extending my classes further into December than they usually go. And they bought 30 books - my final 30 Richard The Thirds, meaning I have now sold out two print runs. Well done me. The drive home coincided with the start of Storm Darragh which meant the bridge suddenly closed as I was approaching it, in the middle of rush hour, so my 4 hour drive home ended up taking 6 hours.
And in November I went to Saudi Arabia. I'm not sure I mentioned my visit last year, because of how sensitive I was about visiting a country with such a notorious human rights record. But this year I went again, thanks to Laurence (who I've been doing the widest range of work from family Christmas cards to corporate murals for years now) and I feel I'm learning a lot about the country and can defend my going there.
It does indeed have a bad human rights record and history (just last week on HIGNFY Ian Hislop was reminding us that their secret police had a journalist killed and chopped up last year). But it has improved and is making constant changes to try and make progress. The most informative story I learned was from one of the women I was working with, who has managed to get divorced and to get custody of her daughter, even with the decision being made by a judge in a Sharia court. Less than ten years ago, she explained, we wouldn't have all been able to sit round at a meal as we were doing, men and women together. That was illegal and would have had you arrested by the religious police. Now she can drive (she drove me & Laurence home) and go about without wearing hijab all the time.
I know these are tiny victories in the context of the West, and they still leave Saudi Arabia as a country that's homophobic, discriminatory against women, and of course a non-democratic Kingdom, where anyone who's not Saudi born works there on temporary visas and can't become citizens. I was working at, and for, Johns Hopkins Aramco Hospital, which provides private healthcare for people who work for the biggest oil company in the world. Very little about the work I've just been doing looks good to the reader seeing this in the future, but I feel I've learned a lot from my two days away (yes, I flew, again I can only apologise) and would do it again. I' still finishing off the artwork, two weeks later.
The celebrities the Comic Art Masterclass groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Declan Donnelly, Michael Jackson, Drake, John Wayne, Tom Holland, and Jenna Ortega.
My Books and where to get them:
Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones
Findlay Macbeth - Amazon - Etsy
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team - Amazon - Etsy
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team - Amazon - Etsy
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Paperback
Space Elain - Amazon - Lulu - iBooks - Barnes & Noble
Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories - Amazon
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon
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