Final Farewell

Gifts from the Crew

I think to call them sneaky is a little underhand, but both Gareth Cowlin and myself never expected what we received on the opening night of the degree Show. Unbeknownst to us, the gang had got together and produce a little surprise for us. I was totally gob smacked because I never expected it!

Here below are the gifts and the class of 2014 

Bryony (Nigel) Morey 

Alice (Give me pizza NOW!) Urbino

Millie (I've got a long neck and love snails) Harrop

Henrietta Looms (Our international student)

Claire (My hair is its natural colour now!) Smith

Jack (Let me run the award) Baker

Tom (Master Draughtsman) Stephens

Verity (I watch a lot of wrestling and I'll put you in a cross face chicken wing if you look at me wrong!) Hall

Esme (I'm a bad ass Manga girl and I do not smile in photos.... I glare!) Baran

London MCM
3rd Year Cartoon & Comic Art students take the show by Storm!

While the 2nd years were doing an organised trip to London Comic Con, the 3rd Years had other things on their mind. They were there to make money and see if they could sell their work which they produced in the last 2 semesters. 

Verity Hall & Esme Baran teamed up as they had worked on a selection of Family friendly Grimm Fairy tales. 

Esme also produced her own fantasy story Called "Undine Adventurer" which has gain a bit of interest in America and they are currently looking at producing a figurine of her character.

Verity's main book is "Like A Shark In A Swimming Pool." a tale of a young girl coming to terms with her sexuality. A brilliant read, if you get the opportunity, The comics are available at a string of Comic Shops up and down the country.

Millie Harrop teamed up with Illustration and Graphics student Emily Peacock to sell her Scrott Comic.  

This is truly one of the few pieces of student work that has made me laugh out loud. 
Also alongside Millie is Emily Peacock, illustrator and Comic Artist herself. 

I also think she performed one of the best pieces of advertising for a comic going. Let be honest if you saw this (Above), you would just want to pick the comic up and read it!! 

Jack Baker was back selling his next episode of the Guild of Winter series. He was sharing with Tom Stephens. 

This was Lex's first convention and she produced some of her digital prints for sale at the convention as well as her own individual artwork. 

 Alice Urbino and Claire Smith took the art of convention selling to a whole new level when they dressed in their Cosplay as Daria & Jane!

Claire had a good run on her comic "I work with Cats" based on her web series. Alice had to chapters of her comic "Dimension" which tells a story of a bloke who while relaxing slips down the drain in his bath and ends up in another "Dimension"

Look familiar anyone?

Image for Henrion Gallery Staffordshire University Stoke Site

Henrion Gallery 

Henrion Gallery Image. I asked Mark Garner Area Group Leader for Visual Communications to choose an image to represent the award. 
"the strongest ones are the ones with Speech bubble on them... without that they only work as images and don't really have any context----these ones are far more representational of CCA…..unless you put together a montage---which I think is what I would do with such diverse work…."
So this is what I knocked up. I think Mark is correct that we have such a diverse collection of people its hard to have one image that represents you all. I Choose Nigel Morey because it is quite dynamic, Claire Smith because is shows the draughtsmanship and also the process we under go as cartoon artist, and Verity Hall and Alice Urbino because of their different style and the use of panels and words. Finally Esme Baran work shows a different type or art in both colour and line work. I hope you all agree and appreciate that this was a very hard task and this represents the best solution to demonstrate the strength and styles of Cartoon & Comic Arts at Staffordshire University

MCM Expo Comic Con

Staffs uni has a presence in London this week end.  Initially the 1st years were touring the cities main comic centres,  including the comic museum in Russell Street and then on to forbidden Planet and finally a book signing at Gosh.  Saturday saw them traveling to the MCM in Docklands to join about another 100, 000 people there in cosplay and other comic related paraphernalia.

24 Hour Comic Day

24 Hour Comic Day

another year and another challenge. This one was specifically difficult as it was run in early October, so to some of the cartoonist it is/was a baptism of fire.
Needless to say I also took part and here is my contribution that was completed at 6.00 in the morning. You can clearly see where the lack of sleep kicked in and the whole world fell through the bottom!
We also had some good comics as well from the 1st year cartoon and comic arts students

London Feedback

Orbital Comics

Last week I took some of the more successful comics from the Pop Up Comic Shop to London to see if Orbital Comics would stock them for us. 

We met Karl at the London Super Comic Con in Feb 2013 and he suggested that once we were up and running properly to pop down and he would see if he could stock them for us.

On sale was the 2nd years Anthology of Hitchcock. We found that this sold particular well as it was a collection of peoples works, and also it was a subject matter that people were generally familiar with.

Esme Baran Mischief & Marauder was one of the few children friendly work produced and this went particularly well at LSCC and also the Pop Up Comic Shop. Some time we forget who the potential audience are for our work. The Pop Up Comic Shop is aimed at people who probably wouldn't usually buy comics, and had a preconception of what there are.

We also sold the 2nd year work. Spore was very popular and we basically sold out of those copies, so I had to take my copies down on sale. Also War of the Worlds was very popular and I took the remaining 3 copies of these for sale at the shop.