Cartoon and And Comic Arts 1st UniQube Exhibition

UniQube Exhibition 

I think we all agreed that the UniQube exhibition was a good experience for the students, even if they didn't!

Above is the main UniQube organisation team along with staff so from Left to right back row - Sophie Jackson. Tina Challinor, Ben Bloss, Akka Moon, Adrian Tooth (Course Leader) Natasha Barton, Lucy Cutts, Kevin Gunstone (Visiting guest lecturer - Comic writer) Front Row - Gareth Cowlin (Leturer) Becci Such (PT Lecturer Independant comic artist AwkwartdBex) - Claire Smith (Lecturer - Independant comic artist TallyB) - Jason Brindley (PT Lecturer - Comic Artist Sevenhedd)

 

Kemo showing Comic Artist and External Examiner Jim Medway around the comic arts exhibition 

Here's the rest of the map cap groups?

And we're off!

Year 7 of Cartoon and Comic Arts 

Well what can I say... A bit later than planned I'm back writing my blog for the new incumbent students on Cartoon and Comic Arts. This year we recruited 30 students onto the award and in turn we became on of the biggest art and design courses at Staffordshire University.

Its been a bit of a mad summer, as we changed from faculty to schools and a lot of the management team and admin staff were redeployed, and basically we were left to drift.

Anyway, for some good news, we received 100%  in the NSS  (National Student Survey) for the course. I think over the years with us moving from new room/building/site to site 2 years of building work and having to use the back entrance etc It wasn't hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel coming once, we had settled in one location and the building works had stopped. 

So it's up to us to keep the momentum going, easier said then done, but here goes ....

Pub Quiz.  

Once again big Thanks to the Team at the Glebe who made us feel welcome. and we had a brilliant pub quiz. 

It was nice to see some 2nd years turn up and make the 1st years feel welcome, though we do feel that there was a bit of cheating going on somewhere doing the pub quiz. 

  We really must apologies to the 1st Year for the standard of the prizes they won. But well done for making it through the first week of Cartoon and Comic Arts 

To Infinity and Beyond!

To Infinity and Beyond!

The other day we had the results from the NSS (National Student Survey). I'm happy to write we received 100% course satisfaction from the students. Lets just say we've got the Champagne on ice ready for when all the staff return at the end of the month.  

But that doesn't mean we can rest on our Laurels. We've still got a long way to go at maintaining this and improving what we do. It is safe to say a lot of it is driven by the students, whose input into the design of the course often goes unnoticed. I think it is safe to say that every year we have added some thing and changed something to try and accommodate the students requirements, without undermining the integrity of what we teach. 

   

This year we are hoping to expand the course, not just with the number of students, but also with space and staff. Overall this will be the largest the course has been with 100 students all studying Cartoon and Comic Arts at the Stoke Campus. 

Welcoming a new 1st year (Level 4) allows us to have a revamp of the teaching space and give them an opportunity to add their mark in a similar vein that last years cohort did. So we're hoping for some really interesting things... again!

The one area that we would all like to see expanded is the Technology side of the award. The Cadman area where we are based seemed to have been left behind when technology  was introduced to the civilised world. But we are hoping little by little that the Connected University will make its way over to us.

Having said that, the main aim as ever is to instil the Cartoon and Comic Arts Mantra into the new students "DRAW...DRAW...DRAW!" We are also committed to make the CCA family as inclusive as ever and try to break down walls and have 2nd and 3rd year students working and mentoring the 1st years in more constructive ways .

At the same time we try and make the course as fun as every and encourage everyone to be a little part of something bigger. Hopefully the while on the course you make friends that will stay with you for the rest of your life!

It's fair to say that some of the ideas we developed last year, were great successes and we're hoping to build on them more than ever. The Film comic that we introduced was a great success and allowed 1st Year students to sell their work at the StokeconTrent event. The money it raised was consumed mainly by the 2 people in the top image (Sarah and Josh!) It was fed back into the course for the 1st year to take advantage of and have a great end of year party. 

Same for the drawing in the Ember Lounge, a chance for lucky diners to have a portrait drawn of them while they waited and ate their lunch. This seemed particularly popular.

So this year we have a lot to live up to, so there isn't a chance to rest and sit back and enjoy the success of last year, its all about making this year bigger and better!

 

London October 2017

1st Years in London 

this year as every year we headed off to London (the Big Smoke!)

We had spent a lot of time writing up a full itinerary for the students to make sure they got their moneys worth and it was definitely action packed!

Arriving in the city and booking ourselves into the Royal National Hotel, we quickly headed off to the British Museum. Here we encouraged the students to look at sequential art through the ages and also launched our new brief about students discovering Myths and Legends of the Big City. This could potentially include something from the Egyptian artefacts or any of the other collected in the place. 

After that we met up and headed off on a tour of the comics outlets and heading down to China Town for a meal.

first port of call was Forbidden Planet just off the Shaftsbury Avenue. After a fire alarm disrupted the visit we lost vital time getting to the other places we wanted to visit. 

This included Orbital Comics

And GOSH Comics where we arrived just as they were closing up, so making this the second year on the trot we got turfed out!

The meal in china town was good, then we headed off to The Champion Pub to meet up with ex student Rob Cureton from Orful Comics. Rob has worked on many animation productions and that is what his full time job is and he does comics in the evening and sells them at conventions up and down the UK

Day 2 Cartoon and Comic Museum

Going to the Cartoon and Comic Museum is one of the high lights of the visit to London. This year Steve Marchant, the man now in charge of the Museums lottery collection was a very busy man. But he gave up his time to have a talk to the students about the new comics the museum had brought and potential areas in which the collection was looking to buy.

After this we had a drawing challenge for the students in Covent Garden... Where was the garden?

We then headed up the road to Trafalgar Square and gave the Students a challenge to enter the National Gallery, and find a selection of images.

Day 3 MCM London Expo

                

 

Heading off early to London docklands this was going be a challenge but fun day. Once we got into the event it was murder to find anyone again till we met up at the location 

       

                 

what was good, a couple of our members of staff are also independent artist and they had stands at the event selling their work. Awkwardbex - Becci Such and Talburt Comics is our own Claire Smith. 

It all ended up with a mad dash for the train and a long ride home, which seems to be a reoccurring thing now on these trips!