Monthly Wrap-Up: This April at Comics Youth!
It’s been a busy April at Comics Youth HQ! From field trips to our usual Saturday sessions, it’s all been happening! Here are some highlights from late March through to the end of April!
Programmes
Comics Declassified - Online
Woodrow Phoenix joined us online to talk through lettering in comics!
Phoenix has extensive experience in the comic industry, and when he isn’t working on his own comics he works as a book designer, illustrator and creator of typefaces. Alongside this, he is a visiting lecturer at the University of Middlesex where he teaches on the MA course in Children’s Books and Graphic Novels.
During the talk Phoenix shared valuable advice on how to approach adding text to your comics, such as focusing on where the text goes before anything else on a page! He also shared other artists’ work in many genres and formats, so this talk is perfect for aspiring comic artists, those who love typography or artists looking for inspiration!
Woodrow Phoenix’s website: Woodrow Phoenix
Phoenix’s masterclass will be posted to our YouTube channel soon! Please subscribe to ensure you hear about future uploads as soon as they are out!
Comics Declassified
- In Person
Our Creative Youth Workers Rosa and Caz led masterclasses on tabling and character design in April!
Rosa and Caz have been tabling at comic cons and print fair for over 10 years combined. They took us through all the essentials of tabling at events, from set-up and display to engaging with customers and making sales, sharing their tips and tricks along with mistakes they’ve made and the things they’ve learnt along the way!
There is still more to come from Comics Declassified! To find out more and sign up to sessions, click the link here!
Rising Voices
Our Rising Voices course has come to an end this April, with celebrations and cake!
Comics Youth partnered with the Environment Agency to bring young people Rising Voices: The Art and Science of Flood Defence was a creative course that aimed to combine art, science and activism to explore how we can respond to climate change together.
Our creative youth worker Rosa, who led the sessions, said that the final session was full of celebrations and cake!
Soon all the work created during the course will be curated into an anthology. Follow Comics Youth on socials for more updates!
Here For The Nerds
From friendship bracelet making to plant pot painting, this month has had plenty on offer!
Here’s what our Here For The Nerds lead Ailís has to say about sessions this month:
“This month at Here for the Nerds we have had some very crafty sessions! Every week we offer an optional main activity for young people to join in with, and this month we had friendship bracelet making, collage bookmark making and plant pot painting on offer! Lots of the group got involved in these activities over the month, and we even had one group member teaching everyone some bracelet making techniques! As always, we also had lots of chats, played games and got on with our own creative projects too - it's been a fab month!”
To find out more about Here For The Nerds, click here!
Saturday Comics Workshop
This month in Saturday Comics Workshop we’ve made hatching creatures and pin-puppets which were then incorporated into comics!
To find out more about Saturday Comics Workshop, click here!
Zine Collective
The Zine Collective is part of our Beyond the Margins project, which is all about elevating and empowering marginalised youth voices through zine making and grassroots publishing.
Photo from when the Zine Collective visited the Liverpool Science Fiction Fanzine Archive!
Here is what Seb, one of our Zine Collective leads, has to say about recent sessions:
The last month of the Zine Collective has been all about learning what zines are and where they came from, investigating the Liverpool Science-Fiction Fanzine Archive, and setting the briefs for our paid collaborative project! It's been busy, full of creative zines, and it's setting itself up to be an excellent second cohort of zine makers.
New Publications from our Collective!
Our talented young people from the Zine Collective cohorts have created comics and artwork for two new printed zines! The State of Our World (by young people aged 13 - 17) and Nostalgia Zine (by young people aged 18 - 25)
The State of Our World: through our eyes
The world is a big place, so let’s talk about it! Open up this zine and explore how young people aged 13-18 view our world, as well as other worlds. Printed on newspaper print for the true, ‘Read all about it!’ experience, open it up and discover intergalactic civil wars, AI, and kittens!
Nostalgia Zine
Being about to take on the world as adults, our Zine Collective here at Comics Youth wanted to take a moment to reflect on their childhood just a touch longer. Open up this zine and read about their childhood pets, birthday ice cream traditions, and holidays around the world!
To sign up to be the first to hear about future events and cohorts for the Zine Collective, click here!
Comic Fairs
Yo! Comics Fair
Anna headed down to Yo! Comics Fair in London, an event made by kids, for kids!
Here is what Anna, our Arts Director, had to say about the event:
“Yo! Comics fair at Stanley Arts centre in Norwood, London is a wonderful event, brimming with children and young people excited about reading and buying comics.
“There are stalls with young people selling their own comics and zines as young as 8-10. It's such a lovely family community event with free entry, a cosy reading space and workshops all day which have a nominal fee. All the workshops were fully sold out including a workshop ran by Anna from Comics Youth about zine making and micro publishing, where we learned about zines, created mini zines about one of our personal interests and then photocopied them to distribute to others in the group.
“The Yo! Comics team have done such a fabulous job creating an event that harnesses the joy of reading and creating comics. It's so cool to see children buying a book from a stall and walking away with their noses buried, reading it there and then. The passion for reading for pleasure is alive and well in comics.”
Barrow Does Comics
Rosa and Sebastian also headed to Barrow town centre to take part in their brand new comics fair, an event aimed at 16-25 year olds!
To keep up-to-date with any events, call-outs or vacancies, check out our Linktree for links to our social media channels.