Year: 2016

Meet the Comics Clubbers

I spoke to two members of our Wednesday Comics Club, Islay and Jenni, about their experiences at the DCCS and their own love of comics! (Caitlin Mitchell)

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I: I’m Islay and I’m 13, and I’m from Dundee.

J: I’m Jenni and I’m 14, and I’m from Dundee too.

How long have you been coming to Comics Club?

J: We’ve been coming since the first week of Comics Club which was 2nd of March, so over 5 months!

What are you working on at the moment?

I: I’m working on a random comic book for the Comics Club fair at the Literary festival in October.

J: I’m doing some character design, and some work to take into the work experience I’m going to be doing at a printing company!

jenni
A few panels from Jenni’s strip in Tales From Dundee and Beyond: Comics Club Comic Strips Volume 1

What are your favourite comics?

I: I like a lot of comics, I couldn’t pick a favourite!

J: The Beano and The Dandy

What’s the best thing about coming to the DCCS?

I: Having the chance to make up your own comics!

J: I like being around other artists, because not a lot of people draw in my school

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A few panels from Islay’s strip in Tales From Dundee and Beyond

Do you go to other clubs or have hobbies that you like to do?

I: I go to Scouts and go cycling sometimes!

J: Just Comics Club – it’s the first one I’ve been to in a few years.

How would you describe Comics Club to people who are interested in coming along?

I and J: It has good people in it and they are very encouraging, and it helps you to come up with new ideas that you might not have thought of otherwise!

Thanks for your time Islay and Jenni!

You can read the rest of Islay and Jenni’s strips in Tales from Dundee and Beyond: Comics Club volume 1, the first collection of strips from Comics Club. Downloadable as a PDF from the link above!

If you’d like to be in the next volume of Comics Club strips, come along to our workshops on Tuesdays (10-13 year olds) and Wednesdays (14-17 year olds) 4.30 – 6.30 each evening!

Introducing the Artists: Catriona Laird

Here is the second instalment of our artist profiles project, with interview by Caitlin Mitchell!

FullSizeRender (1)Tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m Catriona Laird, I’m 24 and I’m from Newport just across the water – I’ve lived there my entire life.

What made you want to become an artist?

I’ve always wanted to be an artist since I was little, but then I actually failed art in secondary school. I had a teacher dragging me round the school, interrogating me about picking a new life choice since it was “a bit late for that” in regards to my artistic dreams. So I turned to science because it was the only other thing I was actually good at. I studied forensic science at Abertay for 2 years but didn’t stop drawing in my notes. It was my grandad who then gave me art lessons, and so I went to the Gardyne campus at Dundee College to create an art portfolio which got me into Duncan of Jordanstone, and now here I am.

Do you have a preferred style of art?

I do a lot of digital stuff – I kind of like blending both traditional and digital art. But since teachers never taught me any digital art I basically taught myself how to do it, so I mainly stick with that since I managed by myself.

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I play a lot of piano – I try and find theme songs for games and cartoons and try to learn them, because they’re so easily accessible and I also watch so many cartoons myself! I play for me rather than anyone else so it’s nice to just sit and learn something. I also play a lot of games – probably too many games.

What is your favourite comic of all time?

At the minute I’m really enjoying Saga – I recently started collecting it. Otherwise I have a lot of favourite Mangas, which is what I liked drawing myself. I’ll always have a soft spot for Cardcaptor Sakura.

What is the best thing about working in DCCS?

Having your own space away from home where you can just completely focus on doing the work without the distractions – also being around like minded people. I’ve only just started here but its nice to have this kind of base as it’s sometimes hard to find information, but here you’re in a space just focused on comics which is great if you want any information or advice.

What are you working on at the moment?

At the minute I’m working on some picture books to help my mum’s charity – she helps a school in Uganda called Uphill Primary School. They’re needing books at the moment on very specific topics; I’m doing one on a girl who has to walk all these miles to get to school and her experience of being there, also on things like the importance of glasses and getting your eyes tested  – things that they don’t know about.

How can we follow you on social media?

Twitter – @tsundernova

Instagram – @tsundernova

www.catrionalaird.co.uk

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Introducing the Artists: Norrie Millar

Over the next couple of weeks we will be creating short profiles on the artists that work in our studio, with interviews by Caitlin Mitchell. Here’s the first; introducing Norrie Millar!

 

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Tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m Norrie Millar, I’m 30, and I’m from Dundee.

What made you want to become an artist?

I come from a family of artists so it was sort of expected that I would go the same way – my brother was the same, he’s a musician. I eventually went into art school and studied at Duncan of Jordanstone up the road, and I studied fine art.

Do you have a preferred style of art?

My art style is quite traditional, with ink, paper, pencil and eraser. That’s how I like to work. Also messily – I’m very messy.

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I like playing music, I play guitar – mostly rock and roll and heavy metal. I try to read a lot – my favourite book is Frankenstein.

What is your favourite comic of all time?

Tough question, I’ll give you a few:

Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, which is one of the first comics I can remember reading as an 8-10 year old, so it has a lot of childhood memories for me.

Day Tripper by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá is a comic that I read when I was in my mid-twenties, trying to get back into comics. It’s a story about life and death, it’s quite an intimate book, and I got really invested in it.

Batman Year One, because it is the best Batman book. (And you can quote me on that.)

What is the best thing about working in DCCS?

Just having the space – it’s quite incredible, not something that a lot of people have. Having the studio is a very rare occurrence as lots of people have to work at home because they can’t afford one. Having the workshops is great as well.

What are you working on just now?

I’m part of an anthology Comic Haus, and I’m also working on a couple of personal projects.

How can we follow you on social media?

Twitter – @prehistoricfrog

Instagram – @norriemillar

www.norriemillar.wordpress.com

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Caitlin’s Intern Web Comic Episode 1

Hi everyone, I’m Caitlin Mitchell and I’m going to be an intern at the DCCS for the next two weeks! I’m aiming to keep you all updated about what is happening in the Space and what we do here 🙂

Part of this will be through working on a collaborative web comic with Rebecca Horner. Here’s episode one, watch out for more over the next couple of weeks!

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Cycling the Bucket Trail

Dundee Comics Creative Space coordinator Damon Herd is cycling the Oor Wullie Bucket Trail to help raise money for the ARCHIE Foundation, the charity behind the sculptures.

On Tuesday 19th July DCCS coordinator Damon Herd will be cycling the whole Oor Wullie Bucket Trail around Dundee. DCCS were one of the many schools and educational establishments to take part in the trail by designing one of the wee Wullie sculptures. We held a competition amongst our Comics Club attendees, and then let them chose the final design. The winner was Cole Lawson, who designed ‘Oor Elvis’. The sculpture was then painted by Damon and is on display in Central Library over the duration of the trail – although sometimes he takes a trip on the mobile library!

oor elvis strip

Damon thought up the cycle as a great way to help promote the Oor Wullie Bucket Trail and raise money for the ARCHIE Foundation. Although the public already appear to have taken the trail to heart, as can be seen by all the folks wandering around Dundee with Bucket Trail maps! He will be setting off from ‘Oor Golfer’ at Carnoustie Golf Links around 9.20am on Tuesday 19th July and will cycle to all sculptures taking #oorselfies, with a plan to finish at the ‘Dr Manhattan’ sculpture (designed by comics artist, and patron of DCCS, Dave Gibbons and based on a character from Watchmen, the book he created with Alan Moore) at Dundee University on Perth Road around 4-5 hours later.

The intention of the trail, and the later auction of the sculptures, is to raise money for the ARCHIE Foundation, which is the official charity of Tayside Children’s Hospital in Dundee. The charity also supports some other children’s hospitals in Scotland and has a long history of making big differences for local children. Everything raised in and for Tayside will stay in Tayside – so you know your donations will help sick children from your local community! More information is available on the Oor Wullie Bucket Trail website.

Damon hopes to help raise awareness for the charity as well as add to the money raised through sponsorship. If you would like to help raise money for the Tayside Children’s Hospital then there are a couple of ways to sponsor Damon on his cycle. You can donate online through the ARCHIE Foundation JustGiving page or through the donation text service. Text TCHA15 £5 to 70070 to donate £5 to The ARCHIE Foundation Tayside Children’s Hospital Appeal. £5 can be changed to whatever you wish to donate.

Oor Elvis

Elvis has left the building – we’ve sent our finished mini Oor Wullie sculpture out into the world as part of the Oor Wullie’s Bucket Trail. He will be appearing in Central Library but might be going on tour as well. We held a competition with our younger group of Comics Clubbers (aged 10-13), and then they voted for the one they liked the best. The winner was Cole Lawson with his Elvis Presley design. Well done Cole! Oor Elvis looks just braw!

Comics Club volume 1

Here it is at last! The first volume of strips produced by our young comics creators. Contained within these 70 pages are strips created by 25 different creators during our after school Comics Club. The cover logo is by Declan Aland.

Click the link below to download the pdf file (file size is approx. 8MB)

Comics Club volume 1

Comics Club volume1

Next Comics Club is Tuesday 7th June

We are on a short break here at DCCS and will be back on Tuesday 7th June at 4.30pm for the first of our regular 2-hour Comics Clubs for 10-13 year olds. Wednesday 8th at 4.30pm will be for 14-17 year olds, and Thursday 9th at 4.30pm for 10-17 year olds.

During the break we will hosting a workshop at Dundee Design Festival on Saturday 28th May at 10 am, click the link for details.

We are currently putting together a digital comic of the strips created in the last sessions but in the meantime here is a ‘comics mash-up’ taster from all the comics.

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