Charity of the month!

charities-evening-1
Cover by Ashling Larkin

We are very pleased and honoured to be The Rank Foundation‘s charity of the month for December. Rank are our main funders, and the DCCS project would not have come so far in the last 18 months without their valuable support and financial assistance. Thank you to The Rank Foundation!

One of the many projects we have worked on for Rank was creating the cover for The Rank Foundation Charities Evening booklet in November. DCCS artist Ashling Larkin created the beautiful cover (above) from a design by our Operations Director Professor Chris Murray.

For more details on our relationship with The Rank Foundation please see the post on their website.

 

The Dundee Comics Prize 2016

The Dundee Comics Prize
War of the Worlds art by Norrie Millar

HG Wells Comic Competition

H.G. Wells is one of the most influential science fiction writers of all time. Among his many works are The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man, which brought new ideas to life and showed us glimpses of the future.

In November 2016 the University of Dundee’s Dundee Comics Creative Space and the Being Human Festival will team up to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the birth of H.G. Wells. There will be a series of events in Dundee, including talks and workshops, and the launch of a new comic. You are invited to contribute a story based on or inspired by the science fiction stories of H.G. Wells!

There are two categories:

Category One: 4-6 pages of completed comic art. The prize is £250, plus publication of the story in the HG Wells comic. Entrants should be over 16 years old. Runners-up may be published.

Category Two: 2-3 pages of completed comic art. The prize is £150, plus publication of the story in the HG Wells comic. Entrants must be 15 years old, or younger. Runners-up may be published.

The deadline for completed submissions is Sunday 13th November 2016.
The work will be judged by a panel consisting of comic creators and scholars, with the announcement being made at the launch of the comic on November 25th 2016.

There will be a public lecture by Dr Chris Murray on comics inspired by Wells, accompanied by a workshop at the McManus Galleries, Dundee, on 1st November 2016, 6.00 – 7.30pm.

The aim of the Dundee Comics Prize is to nurture talent in comics and to help new creators gain recognition. Anyone can enter the competition, and the submission can be in any style, in black or white or colour, but the work must be finished to a high standard (lettered, inked, etc), and it must be a complete story. The work must be original, and it must not have been published already or be currently offered for publication elsewhere. When submitting work good quality electronic copies are requested in the first instance. The prize is awarded to the creator or team who produce the work. If the work is collaborative the members of the team will share the prize money equally. All winners (including runners-up) will be asked to provide a short account of how the comic was created, along with any relevant photos and sketches. These will be used on the DCCS website. The decision of the judging panel is final.

All queries and submissions should be sent to dundeecomicsprize@gmail.com

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!

caitlin01 resized2

 

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.

Comics Studies job vacancy

Full time position for Lecturer in Comics Studies at the University of Dundee – School of Humanities

“We wish to appoint a full-time lecturer with a specialism in comics and graphic novels to our English and Film Studies Programme. Over the last five years the University of Dundee has taken a leading position in the development of Comics Studies, with several courses at undergraduate level and an innovative postgraduate Masters programme in Comic Studies. We also attract a large number of PhD students doing work on comics and graphic novels. We have achieved this through a great deal of work and commitment, and we expect the successful applicant to match our ambitions.”

“We are also home to the Scottish Centre for Comics Studies and The Dundee Comics Creative Space, which you will contribute to and will be expected to help run.”

See the University of Dundee job advert for details.

When Damon met Dennis

In a few days time we will be launching a short comic strip to introduce DCCS. It will also contain a news announcement that we are very excited about! In the meantime here is a taster image from the strip – a comics selfie featuring DCCS Co-ordinator Damon Herd with some other guy in a stripey top.