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Tuesday 31 May 2011

Hayfever Report.


So, on Friday I journeyed down to Hay-On-Wye in Wales to join up with Ted Brandt, Anne Holiday, Tom Humberstone, Becky Luff and Anna Saunders for a weekend of Drop In + Draw at the Hay literary festival.  As part of the kids' Hayfever section of the festival, we had a much younger crowd than we did at Latitude last year, which had a very diverse range of ages taking part.


Still, all the kids were fantastic and really into the whole comics creation thing and we saw some amazing comics created over the two days we were there, including a Beyonce Lumberjack, some sort of Lady Gaga wardrobe dilemma, battling pirates and a guide to democracy in the animal kingdom.


As ever, the greatest part is meeting the kids who are showing those first sparks of interest in comics, and seeing a profound grasp of comics storytelling that they've learned without realising it.  It's a pleasure encouraging them to keep going with comics, and showing them that although teachers or even parents might think it's a waste of time, spending your time drawing comics is a wonderful thing to do.


All in all it was a great weekend.  The festival is a really lovely place, with a totally placid atmosphere at odds with my previous festival experiences.  Caught some stand up from Josie Long and a gig with the spectacular Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.  And most of all, it was a real pleasure catching up with Tom and Anne, and meeting for the first time the extremely talented and lovely Ted, Anna and Becky.

Finally, my favourite moment from the weekend was turning round during the afternoon on Sunday to find someone drawing this...

by Helena.

Tuesday 24 May 2011

London Smog and Hayfever...

The Edward Ross Comics Roadshow will be appearing this weekend simultaneously at MCM Comics Village in London and the WAW+P Comics Classes at Hay Festival in Wales.

Mary will be selling my comics on my behalf and enjoying the fun of MCM during the three days of the convention - this Friday, Saturday and Sunday (27th -29th May).  There will be copies of my usual stuff, including the still quite new Filmish #3 and 100 Tiny Moments, as well as some shiny new postcards.
The whole thing's a bit of experiment to see if it's possible to sell comics without the artist in person, and if it doesn't work out, at least Mary gets a fun holiday out of it.  If you're in London that weekend, I truly recommend making a day of visiting MCM.  It's geek paradise, with loads of computer game booths, movie promotion stuff, cosplay, and most importantly dozens of fantastic comics creators selling and talking about their work.

Meanwhile I'll be with We Are Words + Pictures teaching comics to young folk at Hayfever, the kid-friendly spin-off of Hay festival.  After the success of Edinburgh's recent Drop In + Draw and the fun we all had at Latitude last year, I'm very excited by this one, and it'll be a pleasure to work alongside comics experts Tom Humberstone, Anna Saunders, Ted Brandt and Anne Holiday spreading the fun of comics!

We're there for the first weekend of Hay, the 28th and 29th of May.  If you're there, drop by and join in!  The blurb for the event is:
Create your own comic book character
Make stories with words + pictures
What would a character that you made up from scratch look like? Would they have a beard or tentacles or tiny pointed feet? Would they be tall or chubby or have piercing blue eyes? Well, the We Are Words + Pictures team are here to help you decide and put your ideas into practice. With established comic artists and illustrators on hand we’ll get you designing your very own comic book character and developing a story for them to feature in.

Monday 23 May 2011

Project Parasite II - Malaria

I've been a bit quiet over the last few months since the release of Filmish 3, for which I can only apologise.  I can now announce that I have been commissioned to create a second parasitology comic, this time by the European Virtual Institute for Malaria Research (EVIMalaR), and the preparation for the project has been eating up all my spare time.

© Edward Ross / EVIMalaR 2011
You can still download our first comic for free here.  This time round we've got much bigger plans, with a 16 - 24 page comic envisioned as the final product.  There's room this time to really get down to the complex, interesting details, as well as give more scope to discuss various angles of the disease, including its history, biology and its social impacts, etc.

© Edward Ross / Wellcome Trust 2010
What's cool too is that we're creating a 'modular comic' - so while it will be available as a printed, complete item, we'll also make it available as a resource to teachers, lecturers, students and charities when they need to explain or illustrate a given concept that has been covered in the book.  So for example, if a charity needs to explain to funding bodies why research takes a long time, or the social impact of malaria, they'll be able to take those specific chapters or illustrations and provide them on their own.

Last week my collaborator Jamie Hall and I travelled to the EVIMalaR conference in Heidelberg, Germany to begin research.  We met with scores of researchers working on some of the many facets of malaria research, from those investigating the Plasmodium parasite, to those looking at the mosquito vector.

In the coming months I'll be working on this full time, as we move through research and writing to illustration.  As we go forward, I'll be posting details of our progress, and some samples of the work in progress.

And don't worry, I'll still be keeping time aside to work on some other projects, including more Filmish and some short comics pieces for anthologies and self-publication.

Saturday 21 May 2011

Drop In + Draw Report

I think we can call it a success!  To celebrate 'Free Comic Book Day' on the 7th of May me, Tom Hunt and Fumio Obata organised a free comics drop in workshop for Newington Library in Edinburgh.  The idea was to get people together to draw comics, share ideas and learn from each other, with the three of us on-hand to offer advice and encouragement to budding comic creators.

Bolstered by some amazing coverage in the local press, tweets from comics folk and Scottish creatives, and mentions on the Forbidden Planet blog, we had people streaming through the doors from the start.  All told there were about 50 people who attended.

Just a taste of how busy it became.
And what was great is that we had such a mix in ages and interests, from wee kids just happy to conjure up fantastic worlds in comic-book form, through to older kids and teenagers showing a heck of a lot of promise and skill, and on to adults interested in pursuing their passion for comics further, or keen to get back into a medium they'd left behind years ago.

Fumio talks about his work and his European and Manga influences.
Tom and Fumio set up an impromptu lecture area and gave talks about webcomics and Manga respectively.  A number of keen people took time out of drawing to listen, taking away some great encouragement and knowledge from the two.

All in all it was a great afternoon, and people were I think very pleased with the event.  I got to chat with some interesting people of all ages, who share a real passion for comics.  All most people need is some encouragement, to see that it's actually quite easy to get starting making and distributing comics, and to see that they are not alone in thinking comics are a great thing to do.  I hope we provided that.

(You can read Tom Hunt's look back at the event at the Edinburgh League of Comics blog.)