It's time for the BOOK LAUNCH AND EXHIBITION!

Workshop dates.

Hi everyone!

We are officially announcing our exciting FREE workshop dates.

Please click to image to enlarge. Hope you can all attend~!

- londonprintstudio

the interns at Laydeez Do Comics

A big thank-you to Nicola Streeten and Sarah Lightman for hosting londonprintstudio Comics Collective at their comics forum, Laydeez Do Comics, on the first Monday of this month! The comics interns got to talk about their work as well as the comics internship as a whole and the upcoming exhibition. We also got to bring along some of our workshop participants, too. 

A little entry is now up on their blog reporting on the talk we did there, (thanks to Robin Barnard). 

Thanks also to Karrie for the photos, in spite of the dark!

Lily's Belgium catch-up post

A little catch-up post to add my comic reporting on November's Brussels trip to the mix.

At Strip Turnhout festival Merlin, Abe and me had coffee with the lovely Rachid Alid of FIBDA (Festival Internationale de la Bande Dessinee d'Alger, or the Algerian International comics festival), who gave us an anthology of work by young Algerian comics creators. We were lucky to meet people from the international comics scene - including Shamisa's classmates in Bande Dessinee Studies at Sint-Lukas university in Brussels. 

A big thankyou to John Lyon's Charity for providing us with the opportunity to travel to Belgium and spread the LPS Comics Collective love...Thanks also to Karrie and Nadia of londonprintstudio for accompanying us - we home you had as good a time as we did!
-Lily

Emma Gives Good Advice...

How'do folks... Heres Abe's Blog comic... last month the lovely Emma Hayley (of Self Made Hero) came to the studio to talk us through pitches and life as a comics publisher... She gave good advice. Lots of it...

click and open image in a new tab to zoom in like a superhero!

For more actual informative information on pitching et al...

Why not check oot last years comic about Self Made Hero by the ever talented Isabel Greenburg

Walker book publishing.

The comics interns were invited to practise their graphic novel pitches to the lovely book publisher, Walker. There, they were introduced to Lizzie Spratt and David McDougall who presented us the history of Walker, through the books they have published. It was enlightening to see the range of books they have published over the years, how much they've grown and which international titles they picked up. They shared their insight to what they hope for Walker in the future. It was great to see how passionate they were about comics and they understood how comics in Britain was still developing.

Here are some photos from our visit:

Sheer Brilliance!

The anthology has been sent to the printers...! Now the interns are working hard on their exhibition and book launch.
This will be held at londonprintstudio on the 22nd March... and you are all invited...!

Facebook the Event.

To pre-order on Amazon.

***

In other news, Jade won third place in the 2012 Manga Jiman competition! Her wonderful comic collaboration with Dean McKnight. You can read her blog entry here and read her entry here!

A bright new poster from Jade to promote her graphic novel Siddown!, 6 pages of which will be in the Parallel Lives anthology.

Better late...

Hi guys!


Just wanted to post my Belgium Comic, short but sweet and in my national colours. 
Hope you like it,


Shamisa

Meet Craig Thompson!

On Saturday, GOSH! London comics arranged a special comic event! Shamisa and Abe met their beloved international hero, Craig Thompson, the maker of Habibi.

Though the line was lengthy, Thompson made sure to dedicate his time equally amongst every individual. Once, Shamisa and Abe reached the front, gushing to the extreme, they pestered him and asked every question under the rainbow~

During the instigation, they were shocked to find out that he used to draw 16 hours a day!!! However due to his busy schedule, he now only draws 8 hours a day!

We were wondering... if Thompson ever sleeps...!

Check out Gosh's blog about Craig Thompson! [Post 1] [Post 2]

- Susan.

Shameless Self Promotion

Hi everyone! Shamisa here.
I am fiercely working on some self promotion and wanted to invite all of you to like my page on...
Facebook! yes! Join the community. It will be well worth it <3

Thanks!
Shamisa

A'llo to the internet. Abe here, with his wee comic about his time in Belgium. may have strayed in the tiniest fashion from reportage/travel comic... but these things do happen...  rest assured, my experience of the Belgium comics scene left me filled with excitment et al... those guys really appreciate the medium. Ho humm.

A short comic about my experience in Brussels!! Every girl needs a positive role model~!  

(Please click to enlarge!)

Some of the interns were lucky enough to attend Karrie's fun-filled book launch last night! Photos will be uploaded soon! In the meantime, you can order your copy through Amazon, though it'll be quicker to visit your local comic book store! 

Also, please check out her exciting interactive website she made with Jonathan Plackett!

Watch the animation promo created with the help of the talented Adam Zygadlo.

- Susan.

Brussels: PART 4 - Comics!

Time for the last part of our Brussels report: RESPONSE COMICS!

We decided to create comics based on what we experienced and how we felt after the trip. Keep checking back here to see more comics from us, the first of which comes from Jade.

Click to enlarge!

And here is my little comic offering :

-Merlin Evans-

Brussels: PART 3

Welcome to the penultimate report on our Brussels trip! In Part 3 we'll be telling you all about our last day in Belgium before we travelled home late Monday evening.

Once again it was an early start because we had a lot of walking to do on Monday. We went on a comic walk, you see! For half the day we went on a journey around the capital looking for something amazing: COMICS MURALS. It was amazing. AMAZING. I'm sorry I'll stop saying the word amazing. BUT IT WAS.

We had yet another helpful guide, Roxanne, to show us where all the murals were hidden throughout the city.

Aren't they AMAZI--

It was so inspiring seeing a country so dedicated to their comics as part of their culture. Just LOOK at how huge and how many murals there are. Wonderful to see. Our photos really don't do them justice, they were awesome.

Phew, we needed a sit down afterwards though. We quickly ate lunch, and hurried off to the nearest comic shop, which happened to be "Brusels" (spelt with an umlaut). All of us took the opportunity to pick up some beautiful comic collections in this amazingly diverse shop, which even had comics in our native tongue, hurray for being able to read them AND look at the gorgeous artwork.
We spent a little TOO long in there however, and had to rush off - we were due to be at the Sint Lukas art academy that afternoon! RUN RUN RUN! Past the strip joints, up the ridiculously steep hill, across the busy roads - ah, here we are. Sint Lukas, where our very own Karrie Fransman was giving a lecture~

Then she sprung a surprise on us: We had to present our work too! EEP. However the students were really friendly and we all got up to show our comics and individual styles. They seemed really interested, which was great, and we got to chat to a lot of them in the break. Once again they were surprised that the attitude towards comics in Britain is so different to that of their own. Iiinteresting.

Following telling them all a bit about ourselves, we got them to take part in our never ending comic activity which we'd brought with us, and you'll be able to see the collected drawings in our exhibition in March.

And that was that. TIME TO RUN FOR A TRAIN AGAIN PFFFT.

Yep, we hopped on a train back to the centre of the city, then made our way home on the Eurostar. 

"Goodbye Brussels, it was fun attempting to speak French with you."

We learnt a whole lot on this trip, and are so grateful we had the opportunity to go. Thanks go to John Lyon's Charity and the londonprintstudio, Nadia for travelling with us, and Shamisa for organising the whole trip.

Look forward to the last part of our report, in which we shall bring you some of our own comics (as we know of no better way to express our feelings post-trip). We hope you've enjoyed these reports!

Brussels: PART 2

It's time for the next exciting episode of Comic Interns in Brussels!

Today's post will detail our exciting adventures on Day 2 of our trip to Belgium (which was a delightfully FREEZING Sunday).

 

After our first night at the hostel we woke early to make our way to the Comic Museum. On the way were plenty of beautiful structures, walkways and chocolate and book shops, which we gawked at longingly. Oddly for a weekday though they were all closed in the morning - Shamisa informed us that the Belgians are certainly not early risers!

 

And then we arrived at the stunning Comic Museum! It was a gorgeous art deco style building, with lots of scale/lifesize models of characters and vehicles from famous comics. If you squint you can just make out Asterix in the lobby, and a certain space rocket. And Tintin here was joined by Haddock and Calculus on either side. They were fantastic displays of the country's love for these comics.

We were led around the museum by the wonderfully enthusiastic Bart Hofman. He was a great guide to us, and explained a lot about Belgian comics history. The museum itself was very extensive, with detailed exhibits on Tintin, Lucky Luke, Marsipilami, and many other serialised comics. Most informative - we didn't want to leave!

Alas, our time in Brussels was only short and so we made our way toward (yep, you guessed it) the train station - but fear not, we went somewhere even MORE exciting than the comic museum.

IMPOSSIBLE I hear you cry. Tis not.

You see, we spent the rest of the day in ...

THE HERGE MUSEUM.

It was brilliant. The architecture of the building was so quirky, and there was so much to see. Truly an inspiring part of our trip, the museum featured extensive displays of Herge's work on the Tintin comics, as well as his other illustration work. We were privileged to see behind the scenes test prints, sketches, scribblings, designs and even lifesize models of memorable objects from the comics, such as the shark submarine featured in the Red Rackham's Treasure story. It was amazing to see all that Herge had accomplished in his life in this one building.

Unfoooortunately, we could only take pictures in the lobby... so we quickly snapped these and then bought lots and lots of lovely Tintin merch in the gift shop. Can't recommend visiting this museum enough.

Once again, we didn't really want to leave, but we had dinner reservations so back on the train we hopped. Back in Brussels, we had a lovely meal in a Moroccan restaurant with Shamisa's friendly mother and brother, who were so nice and told us a lot about what the average person thinks of comics in Belgium. They were genuinely surprised that the British perspective on comics was so different to their own. It was a lovely evening, and was a great end to a great day.

We hope you're enjoying reading about our time in Belgium - look forward to Part 3, in which we'll tell you all about the comics murals and Sint Lukas academy, and how we felt on our last day of the trip.