...a flash of purple sparks...

Jasmin's character is the end of the demo... 

...this poster is the beginning...

 

  ...here's the 'To Be Continued!' bit -

And now - The Middle!

After a busy bank holiday weekend - (we had visitors from a county far far away - deepest brightest Surrey) - I was rather tired, and probably did not have as much do-a-demo energy than I hoped to have. But I felt that the spark of comic book creativity was strong in King's Lynn. 

I wasn't wrong. No sooner had I arrived at Gaywood Library and set up a comic friendly zone in the area they had allocated to me, than young Logan took an impromptu seat at the comic round table and quickly coloured in an image of the Hulk on a template sheet!

The demo was to start in 30 minutes, but seeing Logan at work I was bitten by the bullpen bug and commenced drawing his favourite superhero for him - ol' Greenskin himself, and thanks to Logan for providing the Hulk's own deathless dialogue - "Hulk Smash!" - what else?

Sam and his brother Thomas also arrived a little early for the demo, but just in time for Sam to ask me to draw the Silver Age Green Lantern - off template and with red gloves and boots - but still in brightest day and blackest night!

Ok - we've got a group of comic creatives raring to go - we agreed to go 'round the table with each person to suggest a costume design element. Sam at 5 o'clock wanted us to start with the mask, but boots at 7 o'clock got the thumbs up. Imogen suggested reeeally long boots. With spikes on a spiral - and we're off!

In the meantime Thomas asks if I could show him how to draw Cyclops visor. This is more like it - when I was at school all our queries were about algebra, history and french.  CRZZZ!

 

Travelling clockwise - Tom asks to keep the gloves consistent with the boots - long and spikey; Thomas wants an elemental chest emblem - water and fire; Sam interjects that a detached head floating in a ball of fire - "Dormammu!" yells Thomas. (I'm thinking - 'How do these kids know who Dormammu is?' and then I remember Hollywood!) Jasmin and her mum prefer no trunks, a blank torso, thighs and shoulders!
 

Sam insists again for a detached head floating in a ball of flame. I'm still trying to figure out what to draw next. No neck! says Sam.

Phew! We're coming back for colour.

Dimensional Man by Thomas!

Lightning Girl by Imogen

In the meantime, while I'm co-creating, they're creating their own characters! 

Check out Thomas's 'Dimensional Man' (optic blast included!); Imogen's ultra kinetic 'Lightning Girl!'; Sam's flashy 'Boy Racer!' and Jasmin's mum's uber tactile 'Cacti Man!' - kinda reminds me of a customised version of 'The Porcupine!'

Boy Racer by Sam

Cacti Man by Jasmin's mum

It's time for Imogen to leave, and while the guys are busy designing the new age of comics, Jasmin steps up to the marvel spotlight and she and mum envision a new hero or villain - can't say at this point. But we start with power! 

Outstretched arms - hands holding high voltage lightning bolts!! Back to base with shiny high laced boots, denim cut off shorts and fish nets; Sam wants a mask again - Jasmin is thinking visor - there's a discussion with mum - we're holding off on the visor. 

We're going for a chest bullet belt and camo crop top with turtle neck doubling as spiked choker! There's a natural shuffling of personnel - Sam at 5 sits where Imogen sat at 7, and Nikita takes Sam's place. 

I've no idea what the time is - but it's never too late to create!

 

The super angular visor is in, and graphic black bob is out. Face is out - featureless mask and massive plats in. No name, no mission, no problem! 
 
Multi tasking style - Nikita and Jasmin have also conjured up the 'Love Cat' and 'Bear Grilled' while Tom produced graphite warrior 'Black Hole!'

Love Cat by Nikita!

Bear Grilled by Jasmin!

A big thank you to Nikita who stepped up to the easel and drew a blockbusting version of Big Hero 6's Baymar - well done! (And thanks also to Nikita's dad - a big Watchmen and Sandman fan - for showing me his very own Dr Manhattan!)

Black Hole by Tom!

Baymar by Nikita!

Before we got down to playing Dr Spectrum with the colours, Sam asked for a 'quick sketch' of Daredevil. I started with the feet and just worked my way back, couldn't see where I was going...

 Hope this is OK Sam

Having recently purchased a veritable arsenal of Winsor & Newton Promarker colours, I was armed and - maybe not dangerous - but certainly ready, to colour in those newly created characters. 

So without further adeu - here's Elemental Man! (Well, it's not so bad. Thomas wanted 'Dorspiku!) 
 

 
 Apologies to all for not having time to discuss, list and compare all the characters that I had in my display today - particularly to Thomas who was unsure whether the Silver Surfer was a villain or hero. 

Before I could say that while the Silver Surfer was not a villain as such, being the herald of the planet devouring Galactus he would by no means have been viewed as a hero when he first appeared. Thomas mentioned that the Surfer was indeed a villain when he was in the thrall of Thanos! 

By now I didn't know what he was talking about, or where I was going. Before I could defend my knowledge of Marvel history I quickly reminded myself that being twelve, Thomas was forty eight years younger than me - and me having not really read many Marvels in the past fifteen years - he probably knew what he was talking about. 

...and coincidentally, 
Fantastic Four #48 was the issue featuring the first appearance of both the Silver Surfer and Galactus!

'Nuff Said?

I didn't realise it until I got home and uploaded the photos I had 

taken, and sure - I knew that of all the genres the workshop could 

have been placed in, we were in the 'Crime' section. 

But it was only later I noticed the very much more than 

appropriate placement of the character sketches!

A big thank you to Elena for organising the workshop event in conjunction 

with Richard of the Youth Advisory Board and Norfolk County Council. 

A Galactus-size thank you to Imogen, Tom, Thomas, Jasmin, Sam and Nikita 

for taking part and creating a new universe of Super Heroes and  Villains!  

And a Hulk-sized thank you to Logan for starting us all off so well!!

…should I stay or should I go...

...there I was reading through my 'Old Guys Who Like Old 

Comics' posts on facebook, and there's this advert for a 'Comic Book 

Inking Masterclass!' - with Cam Smith. Well I've heard of Cam Smith, 

and I've seen his great work on Bryan Hitch and Gary Frank - but I've 

never heard of a 'comic book inking masterclass' or anything like it. 

An offer I really shouldn't refuse.

Oh, hang on a minute, it's not the 60s, 70s or 80s, 'cause we never 

had anything like this back then. If you wanted to draw comics, well you 
just copied from them, and got on with it. And kept getting on with it. 

Ok, I did send off for and take part in the 'We're looking for people 
who like to Draw' mail order course which was advertised on the back 
of loads of comics in the 60s and 70s. 

This simple one with the happy
dog and the bright colours
- this is the one I sent off for...

Not this one - too formidable.
And Norman Rockwell -
which comics did he draw?

I know when I received it, I completed all the drawing tasks - 
perspective, anatomy, patterns, still life, tone, contrast, colours, 
hands-faces-eyes-ears and-God-help-me-noses and sent 
it straight back to the distant land that was America. 

No idea what happened to it after that. 

There were a couple of classes in the mid 80s, one was run by 
Wyn Wiacek, near the Elephant & Castle I think. I remember us 
all talking about comics - particularly Barry Smith's legendary 
pencil only pages in Conan #19 that Wyn said that he had 
seen up close and personal like. (What! He knew Barry!?)

Talking to anyone about a subject you generally kept 
close to your heart was a novelty. A room half full of 
like-minded people was a revelation!

...of course the other class was David Lloyd and Steve 

Marchant's London Cartoon Centre - 'not quite sure where in 

London it was, me being a Croydon boy. I do remember a large 

mainline station, taking a couple of tubes, and then passing 

Trellick Tower (?!) to get there. All looked a bit dodgy to me.

Just like the poster says - it was a lot of fun. Tutors were David 

and Steve, Dave gibbons, who invited us all to the pub and regaled 

with tales of meeting Steranko in London and Jack Kirby 

in the States. Unimpressed he said by Jim's stage entrance 

"...I am Steranko…" but of course justifiably 

impressed by Jack 'King' Kirby! 

The magnificent John Burns (of Countdown and Zetari!) did a 

night and Paul Neary (who I remembered from Skywald 

magazine 'Psycho' and Marvel UK of course) too. 

Bought this at Victoria - still got it!

One of the tutors whose name I forget, gave 
us all some some excellent and prevailing advice - 

"...drawing from comics is fine, but if you really want a 
good understanding of anatomy and the body in action - 

nothing beats life drawing! Find a life drawing class and 
go to it regularly. And keep going." 

Brian 6/15 - Ouse Life Group

Eva 7/15 - Ouse Life Group.

…so where was I ? Oh yeah - Orbital Comics, 

Little Conduit St in the heart of London, is indeed a conduit 

to other worlds, and an ideal location - surrounded as we were by 

an enviable and inspiring array of Silver and Bronze Age mags 

(all at reasonable prices) - for Cam Smith's Inking Masterclass!

Definitely bigger on the inside than outside!

All told we were a thirty or so strong all ages group. We had a choice 

of two blue line pages of artwork to ink. One was predominantly Batman,

the other Spider-Man - being an old time Marvelite I chose the Spidey 

page less for company loyalty as for the dynamic drawing by 

Giuseppe Camucoli! No disrespect to the great Gary Frank!

In orbit.

We all brought along a variety of tech pens, markers, 

dip pens, brushes and ink. This being a traditional inking class there 

were no wacom tablets or macs in sight. After twenty minutes of advice 

and instruction from Cam followed by a demo viewed onscreen, I noticed 

people around me were taking the inking bull by the horns and going for it. 

I hadn't used my dip pen for months, and my 'Superhero Workshop' 

not withstanding, had not drawn any superheroes for ages. So this was 

as good a time as any to take a deep breath and go for it!

And what fun it was! 

A big thank you to Cam (and Orbital) for a hugely enlightening evening. 

Reinforced a few things I did know and learnt many things I didn't know 

- like which pens and brushes and pens the pros use (and more to the 

point - where to get the legendary Hunt 102 and Speedball pens!)

Cheers again to Cam for additional 

post workshop advice.

...Bring on the Bad Guys...

They say that you can measure the appeal and success of a superhero by the quality of his or her super-villains. You only have one hero in the strip but you need a veritable rogues gallery of bad guys to keep things interesting each month. After a brief discussion regarding super villains, we quickly got into designing arch villains for the two superheroes we created last week. 

We created LORD OF LIGHTNING to be the arch nemesis of BLIND NINJA, and 

the bane of SPIKED AVENGER'S heroic life would be BLOOD SAMURAI!!

The images of the two new villains must remain TOP SECRET for the present- or until I can get a new SD card reader for my camera. PICTURES TO FOLLOW!

...and here they are - bring on the bad guys...

Having designed a couple of villainous characters ourselves on the easel, the class got down to possibly their favourite assignment - 'Design a Super Villain! And who better to overlook and provide inspiration for such an endeavour than the blood-curdling Prince of Darkness himself - DRACULA!

Here are two new characters from Zac and Finn. The creations of Toby, Cole, K.C., Jack and James on their way... (SD card reader again).

Zac's multi-coloured villain.

Finn's 'Mystery Man'

Toby's 'Captain Nuclear!'

Finn again - 'Lightning Guy'

...begin again...

Apologies to K.C., Cole, Jack and James - unable to recover photos of your characters - will add to blog after 1st session Module 2.

Along with the Shadow and Zorro,  Dracula was inspirational
in the creation of teenager Bob Kane's Batman! 

NEXT WEEK - SUPERHEROES VS SUPERVILLAINS!!

...and last but not least...

The second installment of the 'Bite-Size History of Comics!' 

The first appearances of Superman in 1938 - and Batman in 1939 - heralds the birth of the Golden Age of Comics! From then on a veritable deluge of colourful costumed characters poured onto the newsstands as publisher after publisher jumped onto the lucrative comic book bandwagon. Not the least of which being Martin Goodman's Atlas Comics' with their Human Torch and Captain America. Atlas comics would go through a series of successes, crises and calamities before it would publish comics decades later under the name Marvel Comics! 

I listened to one student recount the origin of the Silver Surfer - being that the world-devouring GALACTUS had consumed and destroyed the planet Zenn-La, but chose Norrin Radd - the only survivor - to become his planet seeking herald. I had to interrupt, and explained that the Silver Surfer origin I read in 1968 showed a heroic Norrin Radd on a decadent land-locked planet, sacrifice himself to serve GALACTUS in order to save Zenn-La. Norrin Radd volunteered to scour the universe searching for alternative planets to assuage the hunger of the planet eater.

I rather liked the 'survivor' origin myself. Comic book continuity is pretty confusing at the best of times - we agreed that the continuity had clearly been rewritten...

Next week - The man whose lies almost 

destroyed the  comic book industry!

A big thank you to Simon and Becka at Downham first and foremost 

art shop - Framin' Art - for all their help and support!