May London MCM Comic Con

Staffs Uni 

Cartoon & Comic Arts 

Students take 

London MCM By Storm

This is a bit later than planned due to the work load associated with the end of the semester and setting up the degree Show and doing all the marking etc, I wont carry on, I can see you are already close to tears.

This year saw Cartoon and Comic Arts setting up Level 5 students (2nd Years) to go to London MCM Comic Con. They were split into 4 groups (Publishing houses) and got together to sell purely original comics. It turned into a huge success for the students.

The Comic Village was very large this time, the students were split into their groups and dispersed among other independent artist and publishers.

The Super Comic League consisted of Emily Moore, Chizi Woherm, Jay Wightman and Megan Lee. They drew comics based on Fantasy creatures.

Hex Comics with Christina, Ross, Brad, Simon and Zu. Their comics had a mystical element to them.

Melonchomics had Vicky, Sonny, Izzy, Rob, Sam and Reuben and did a post Apocalyptic tales. 

Finally Techne Comics based mainly in Fantasy/Mythology stories featured Maisy, Tara, Nadia, Nick, Kate and Natasha, and they had a special guest star Pheonix a 1st year student turn up to help out .

Staffordshire University 

Cartoon & Comic Arts 

Exhibition at London Cartoon Museum 

This year saw the Cartoon & Comic Arts second lot of students to graduate and we also had an attempt to display their work from the degree show in the capital city at the Cartoon Museum. With the Help of Sarah Batten, who did a lot of the work, I turned up with Becci Such and Emma Buxton. 

We met Alice who is the liaison person for the lottery grant which the museum had secured and was keen to meet the students and see the work. She passed on some real helpful tips. Also there was Steve Marchant, ex Beano Artist and assistant at the museum.

From Left to right Becci Such, Steve, Sarah, Alic and Emma Buxton at the event.

Some of the work on show at the museum along with the comic books that you can have a look through below.

Special thanks for the Museum who managed to get some beer from their sponsor, and American beer Company whose labels are design by Ralph Steadman. We might ask them if they could sponsor the next Cartoon and Comic Art event!!!

 While in London we ended up in Forbidden Planet. 

Becci and Emma Found themselves in the Manga Section of Forbidden Planet and suddenly there is a problem.

 Which Manga book should Becci buy... Over to you Emma

This is the book Becci recommended for me to get for the Cartoon Award.

Finally we ended up in China Town. Many thanks to Steve and Sarah who came out on the town with us and kept us entertained and informed about the museum and beer sponsorship.

Opening Night 12/06/2015

Degree Show Opening Night 

Friday 12th June 2015 saw the second Cartoon & Comic Arts degree Show. This was a special occasion as we were privilege to have None other than the legend David Lloyd to Open the show. The course has come a long way in a very short time it and the students have achieved so much. 
the aim as ever is to keep that going and let the student drive the award forward. John Charles believe that there is an opportunity to become A centre of excellence in the UK for Comic Artist. It is a tall ask, but one I'm sure the next set of graduates will be up to take on the task. 

the 2nd years got in on the event to. Brad behind the comic book stand and also their own pop up comic book shop where they sold over £40.00 worth of comics on the night 

Some of the 2nd years cam in and volunteered to paint the stand with their characters, it was initially a slow start, but in the end it looked fantastic. 

The opening ceremony was conducted by the Vice Chancellor Michael Gunn and the Dean for the Faculty of Art and Creative Technologies Dr Astrid Herhoffer 

The event took place in the Henrion Gallery 

David Lloyd did an inspirational speech 

Adrian Tooth and David Lloyd

The Prize for best student went to Becci Such of Cartoon & Comic Arts 

The Show

It was great to see Verity Hall and Claire Smith back at the event 12 months after they had been there. More importantly they brought new ideas about how the course can be improved and what they could do to help.

Finally both myself and Gareth were given a present by the students, something that ensured we would never forget them... how ever Hard we tried !

Degree Show Build 2015

3rd Years prepare for Degree Show

This years see's cartoon and comic arts 2nd lot of students graduate. As is now the practice at the end of the  the whole of the Art & Design department goes about putting on an end of year show. Comics once again played an important part in this.

Below is a visual documentation of how the show came together and the various in carnations it went through.

So Starting off with the room we were allocated. It was the same one as last year where it held 10 students, this year there was to be 12, so this meant that false walls had to be built and work had to be printed and put up.

Above shows the initial starting point, the room with the boards in ready for the interior walls to be built 

The partially built side wall was to allow 3 students to display their work 

The corner piece was taken out to allow for the space to be used more effectively 

The final panoramic view of the area in Henrion Room H009

After that the students moved in to start the job of turning the area into their Degree Show Space

We tried to stop the paint being put on the floor honest with the plastic wrapping 

It was great to see how everyone stood around and waited for Becci to stir the paint

then with a few well chosen adjustments the team kicked in 

The paint was stirred enough

and teh magic started to happen

yep... missed a bit. 

Once the room was done, the furniture was moved to one side to allow the floor to be polished.

Artwork submitted 

Kieran Hayes

Callum Lawrence-Bardsley

Will Kellioh

Michaela Betts

Ryan Moss

Will Vaughan

Reece Palattao

Becci Such

Emma Buxton

Connie Skerrett

Michaela Clark

Currently missing is Pete Dawson's work which is an animation which I hope to up load soon