Selling work & Workshops

Life after Study 

Cartoon and comic arts provides a wide and varied selection of options available to the student to what they can do with the skills acquired on the award after they finish. 

Obviously a lot of students either dream of selling their work independently at small press conventions or plan to work for other like minded individuals.

The award offers a range of opportunities to allow the students to experience work in a range of different elements.

Off the back of a successful MCM trip to London  in May, the 2nd year students were up for attempting to sell there work at a range of places before the official end of the semester.

Having Rebecca Such (AwkwardBex) as part of the teaching team allowed us to expand what we were doing. Becci is very entrepreneurial in her approach and out look. Always one to see an opportunity to sell both her work and skills along with students, she helped the students realise their true potential.

Working alongside Staffordshire Student Union, Becci help set up at stall at the local train station in celebration of the Queens Birthday.  

 

 

The Geek Box comic shop in Newcastle also provided an opportunity for the students to get their work out into the public.

Both 2nd years and 3rd Years ventured down to the shop where we had a small spread on for people who turned up to support the students. 

                            

 

Along with this we were lucky to meet while at MCM a small publisher Accent UK Comics, who turned up to have a look at what the students were producing. 

The Guys from Accent Comics were happy to preview the students work and have a general chit chat about what they should consider if they were really interested in getting in the comics industry.

                                     

 

Sam Megaw was singled out with his book as a potential comic artist to watch out for.

Afterwards we headed out to celebrate the success of the event and also see Shaun Nichols, who was working across the road at a bar.

During the degree Show, the second years got their act together to open the Pop Up Comic Shop in the main Henrion Foyer area. This was great as it encouraged the second years to have a look at the degree show and also experience the whole event. Something that a few of them don't do as they have usually left at this point and headed home.

Becci and workshops

Becci Such (AwkwardBex) also provided help and support while running a couple of workshops during the Degree Show week . 

One included a workshop in the Local (Hanley) Park where there was a literature event happening (The Big Book Swap!).

Along with Tanra Studios Tara Washington and Nadia Williams they helps young children to experience story creation using comic arts.

On the following Friday, Becci was available once again to take on younger children from local schools to do another Comic Art class with the help of new lecturer and interdependent artist Claire Smith (TallyB) 

Degree Show Success

Degree Show

Cartoon and Comic Arts goes from Strength to Strength

Another year has drawn to an end and so has the Cartoon and Comic Arts award. This year saw students put on the biggest and best degree show ever. 

With 21 students graduating this year it was clearly the largest cohort to date to go through the 3 years. Along the way we've made a few tweaks to ensure we still provide one of the best and original award in the UK. 

After the initial set up of the area, this time we held our show in the life drawing room, which does seem appropriate as it is one of the awards main teaching rooms. 

We went fro a corporate feel to the event, though this is what was intended with the red banner along the top and the grey skirting board. The aim was to get it more reflect the catalogue that was produced to go along with the show.

The opening night was good and we tried to organise a portfolio review for students, so they could bring their portfolios in and see what industry professionals would say was missing for 3rd years, or for 2nd years for them to things that they could concentrate on in their final year.

 Above is a panoramic view of the cartoon and comic arts degree show space. 

There was a selection of refreshments at teh event which seemed to go down well amongst the guests and the students!!

Students talked with a range of visiting people about their work and sold a fair amount of their comic work during the night. 

Azzuro Zito has a swift drink before talking about his work to a VIP

Zu handled himself perfectly with the arrival of the Lord Mayor for Stoke-on-Trent.

            

Obviously the Lord Mayor want to chat with a range of students and people about their work. But overall the Mayor was impressed with what he saw at the event, taking specific time to look and talk to students about their stories and their artwork. 

The night also had to honoured guests from Industry to chat and talk to people about the work. Kevin Gunstone is a well re-known comic book writer, with several of his work current in production 

above are a couple of images of students at the degree show.

Along with individual students talking about their individual work, above Nadia Williams and Tara Washington talk about their start up company Tanra Studios. This is a project that both the ex students have been working on since the success of going to MCM at the end of their second year on the award. They had a similar idea about this corporation of people who are able to enter peoples dreams and sort out their problems.

Above - the area also had its own pop up comic stand where students work which was published went on sale.

Here is a range of work that was on sale and available during the week long the degree show.

The room was generally well full for the entire night as mother fathers and honoured guests mingled and studied a range of work on display