Comiket at the British Library August 2014

Yesterday I had a great day at this year’s Comiket.  It’s always a nice event and a chance to sell my wares and catch up with creator friends.  This time round the event took place in the amazing building of the British Library.

My table neighbours were fabulous artists and buds Anna Dowsland (middle) and Francesca Dare (right).  Francesca was rightly proud of her new Penny Blackfeather banner and her new collected edition of Penny Blackfeather available through Sloth Comics.Comiket-2014-1Across a small divide were two collaborators for Tempo Lush Tales, Spandex creator Martin Eden (middle) and a very tired but still awesome Van Nim (right)!Comiket-2014-2 Next up you can see how another Tempo Lush Tales contributor, Keara Stewart made her way into many of my photos…Comiket-2014-3Clearly Keara and Karen Rubins were having an amazing time.
Keara is sporting a Lucy the Octopus badge.
Karen, talented comic creator (another Tempo Lush Tales artist) and Phoenix contributor is sporting a weird frown.Comiket-2014-4Finally, Keara’s weird face pulling is joined by Broken Frontier writer Andy Oliver and Myriad Editions editor Corinne PearlmanComiket-2014-5I was determined not to buy anything myself, but couldn’t resist the new children’s book Jampires.  It’s a collaboration between Sarah McIntyre and David O’Connell. Both extremely talented writer artists by themselves, their combined creative power has produced something very special or silly or both!Comiket-2014-6One of the unique features of Comiket is the drawing parade.  Here different artists draw live to a soundtrack of music chosen by themselves.
Here, the wonderful Jade Sarson doodles away.  Watch out for Jade’s art contributions to the upcoming Rosie and Jacinda comic!Comiket-2014-7One last look at my Comiket table before I focus on getting four new Tempo Lush comics ready for release in October!Comiket-2014-8

Cartoon Creation Corner – The Big Picnic Workshop in Rochester

Not a bad backdrop to be running comic workshops with the fabulous Gary Northfield in Rochester yesterday…
Rochester01Armed with some fantastic worksheets provided by the Phoenix Comic, I was helping Gary out in the Cartoon Creation Corner as part of the Big Picnic, itself part of the Fuse Festival.

Gary is an incredible comic creator, responsible for (amongst other things) Derek the Sheep from the Beano, Gary’s Garden from the Phoenix, the all ages graphic novel Teenytinysaurs and the upcoming book Julius Zebra, which I’m looking forward to reading to my boy when it’s out in 2015!Rochester02We got asked to draw all sorts of odd creatures and things for the steady stream of kids and their parents that came to join in the comic making fun. Here’s some of my efforts…Rochester03 Rochester04 Rochester05I drew this owl at the request of a young girl, to put up on her wall. Afterwards she politely told me she’d wanted a barn owl and I’d drawn a long eared owl.
Felt such a fool.
Rochester06One popular worksheet showed visitors how to draw the Evil Cat character from Laura Ellen Anderson‘s Phoenix Comic strip: Evil Emperor Penguin
Rochester07People also created strips from scratch including this one about a cactus who blows up a rival plant food shopRochester08Lots of great work was laminated and hung out to view in a pop up gallery
Rochester09 Rochester10 Rochester11 Rochester12Did you spot a Porsche, Scooby-Doo and One Direction?