Interview: Bringing Comics to the Classroom

Digital comics are pushing boundaries on many fronts, but one British company is pushing them into the classroom, aiming to harness the timeless appeal of comics to create a uniquely engaging learning tool. 

The first Comics in the Classroom projects utilize the art of Adam Humphries, one of the project's core team, Amy Pearson, Dave Webb and Italian Marvel Comics artist Giancarlo Carcuzzo, who is also currently working on ROK Comics upcoming audio comic, Master Merlini, and WarWorldz for STRIP Magazine.

The Directors of Comics in the Classroom are old friends, growing up in the same area of Birmingham, attended the same school etc and haven't been able to shake each other loose yet.

James Ball, 36, is currently the Head of History at the Wordsley School in Stourbridge, West Midlands. A History graduate, he trained and worked as a journalist before entering education and co-authored four highly successful text books for Oxford University Press.

Adam Humphries, 39, has spent nearly two decades in graphic design, including five years as a Senior Designer at McCann's advertising agency. He recently went freelance in order to devote more time to CitC.

With those distinct skill sets and backgrounds, the division of labour broadly falls into James taking care of “words” and Adam taking charge of “pictures” and all things visual.

Art by Giancarlo Caracuzzo

downthetubes: What is the concept behind Comics in the Classroom and how did it come about?

Comics in the Classroom: The idea behind CitC is to harness the timeless appeal of comics to create a uniquely engaging learning tool. Our titles differ from traditional comics in that, before each page of the comic is accessed, the user reads or listens to around 250 words of prose. Each word is highlighted as it is spoken in order to boost literacy and accessibly and the events that are depicted in the comic are broadly outlined.

Armed with their new knowledge, the user moves on to the comic - but a comic with blank narrator's boxes and speech bubbles. Once these bubbles are tapped, the user is confronted with three possible entries. Drawing on what they have just learned, they identify the correct entry, swipe to the next panel and eventually the next page. CitC is essentially a formative assessment, not that the user will realise this, and by correctly filling all of the bubbles and “unlocking” the comic, they are not only learning, they are demonstrating their understanding to their teacher or parent.

The idea for the App came from the classroom itself and from James Ball's attempts to engage some very challenging Year 10 boys in the study of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Furnished with a comic version of the novel from a friend, he colour-photocopied it and tippexed out all of the bubbles. He then read Shelley's novel with the class and set the youngsters the task of generating the text for the comic. It was an instant and roaring success.

Convinced that the concept had wider applications, he approached Adam about the idea of creating historical comics with blank bubbles. Adam immediately saw the potential - particularly with the new possibilities offered by the iPad - and we got to work.

Art by Dave Webb

downthetubes: Are your releases iBooks or Apps (so people know where to look) and what has been released so far?

CitC: Comics in the Classroom will be in the App Store. The App is free to download and features three free demos. Each title is priced at £1.99 and can be purchased through in App purchasing. Our three launch titles are The Archduke and the Black Hand Gang, The Dambusters and The Murder of Thomas Becket. We plan to add to our title list rapidly and regularly and, in various states of completion, we have The Attack on Pearl Harbor, Jack the Ripper, Rasputin, Billy the Kid, 1066, The Gunpowder Plot, Joan of Arc and The Battle of Trafalgar in the pipe-line.

Art by Wynn Ryder

downthetubes: The titles are currently available for iPad – are you planning to export them to other platforms, such as Android?

CitC: Absolutely. We are initially launching exclusively on the iPad and iPad Mini but plan to expand onto other platforms such as Android, Web App and Mac App as soon as possible.

downthetubes: What is your target audience? Is it teachers or student or both?

CitC: Definitely both. We intend to market directly to schools as so many are investing in tablets and we believe this App can do so much to enrich the learning that takes place in the classroom. This will also expose the legions of iPad owning youngsters to Comics in the Classroom whose parents, who have often bought their offspring tablets because of the educational benefits they offer, are bound to be interested in an App that both excites and educates their kids. And it will be the kids who decide whether we are successful or not. It doesn't matter who we target if the App doesn't captivate and inspire the youngsters to learn about history.

Working on Jack the Ripper

downthetubes: You have a range of creators involved, including Giancarlo Caracuzzo. Are you looking for more creators or do you prefer to look for artists whose style you like yourself?

CitC: We're always on the look out for new illustrators - and want to try and include as broad a range of styles as possible. It does ultimately come down to our personal preference but we want to avoid developing any kind of house style.

Art by Amy Pearson

downthetubes: How long does it take to create one of your comics projects, from plotting through to release?

CitC: It's hard to put an exact timescale on the entire creative process as there are so many variables. It starts with us discussing and selecting possible figures or events and, with so many to choose from, it's not always easy to reach a decision. Once we have settled on a subject, James gets reading and researching and starts putting the prose together.

This always provides a challenge as the entire story has to fit into 1,000 words and be snappy and dramatic enough to maintain the reader's interest between the comic pages. Once complete, we independently break it down a comic and then come together to compare results.

When we have agreed on every panel, Adam puts together a rough story board, James writes the copy for the comic and the title is assigned to an illustrator. After we sign off pencils and we get the inks (always a joyous experience), Adam gets to work creating the mastheads and textures and choosing a colour palette for the colourist. Then begins the more prosaic process of recording and mixing the audio and putting the artwork into the app itself.

As you can see, there are quite a few stages to the process and we always have several titles on the go at once. Although several elements are fairly arduous and things don't always run as smoothly as we'd like, it is always an immensely satisfying and enjoyable experience.

downthetubes: Do you have any plans to collect the strips into print form?

CitC: Not in the short term. The nature of the App, with its interactive and educational element, means that a printed version would give the game away. That said, it would be lovely to see the art work all together in a book

downthetubes: You've mentioned you have Oliver Frey, the man behind the amazing covers of the 1980s computer magazines Crash and Zzap64 , working with you on a new title. Can you tell us more about that at this point?

CitC: We were both enormous fans of Oliver's work when we were Sinclair Spectrum owning teens - it did so much to bridge the gap between the very basic 8-bit graphics and the scenarios they were meant to depict. We were certain he could do the same for historical figures and, after buying Roger Kean's book on his work, we discovered he had a love of history. We looked him up on the internet (www.oliverfreyart.com) and he immediately grasped the concept and jumped at the chance to draw Joan of Arc for us. We're very excited about this - both because of the quality of his work and because it's Oliver Frey!

downthetubes: Producing apps is time consuming in itself but what is working best for you in terms of marketing them, given the huge number of digital products aimed at children on the iTunes store (18,000 children books alone for the UK market - and counting?)

CitC: At the time of writing this, we are really only just embarking on our marketing campaign as all of our time has been taken up getting the App itself built. With so much out there it can be hard to make yourself heard, but we're confident our history and educational angle - combined with the standard of the artwork - will set us apart. If you have a look at what education Apps are in the store for History, there is hardly a wealth of choices - and certainly nothing that utilises the iPad's capabilities in the way Comics in the Classroom does.

There is currently a big shift in technology in education, with things moving away from the teacher operated interactive whiteboard to pupil operated devices - and this shift is getting plenty of column inches. We are working with a PR agency to get Comics in the Classroom in front of the myriad of App reviewers - whether they be in the education, tech or parent sector or appear in print or online. We believe we represent something genuinely new and innovative in an area where the software has failed to keep pace with the capabilities of the hardware. That's got to grab some attention!  

downthetubes: What one piece of advice above all else would you give an aspiring comic creator seeing to break into the industry?

CitC: This is a tricky one for us to answer as we're probably coming at this from a different angle to most people entering the comic industry. I suppose the best advice we can give is to back your own judgment and give it a go. The only way you can be certain it will fail is by not trying in the first place - and it's amazing what you learn along the way.

• Find out more about Comics in the Classroom at www.comicsintheclassroom.co.uk

• Download the free Comics in the Classroom app from iTunes

Dan Dare of Eagle Force? A British comics mystery...

The mystery Dan Dare art - who
drew it, who wrote the script and
what was it for?

(Updated 28/2/11 PM) Dan Dare and Eagle fans were spoilt for choice last December and January when, in addition to the latest Dan Dare reprint book, Trip to Trouble, released by Titan Books, two other books on the creation of the original 1950s Dan Dare comic strip in Eagle were published. One was Tomorrow Revisited by Alistair Crompton, his long awaited follow up to The Man Who Drew Tomorrow, which focused on Dare creator Frank Hampson and was lushly illustrated with Eagle pages reprinted from the original art boards.

The other was the more mass market Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future: A Biography by Daniel Tatarsky, which dealt with Dan Dare throughout the 1950s and 1960s along with mentions of his ongoing adventures elsewhere and with a few illustrated colour sections amongst the text.

Both books received good reviews but one image used in The Biography, not picked up by the reviewers, started to puzzle some Eagle fans.

The colour end pieces of the book have illustrations of original Dan Dare art boards. Both the front and back have the same head shot of Dare as well as each having separate full pages of painted comic strip. At the rear is a page from the Dan Dare story The Moonsleepers featuring Dan, Digby and the villain Xel while the front has a page featuring a space fighter training session run, apparently, by Colonel Dan Dare for an organisation called Eagle Force.

The Xel page was published in Eagle Vol 16 No 16 (17 April 1965) as the second page of that week's Dan Dare story but, so far, no one seems to recognise the other one and it was not referenced in the book's text. Since Eagle has had an active fandom since the 1960s and the current Eagle fanzine, Eagle Times, is now in its 24th year, it was very unusual for anything new or unknown to turn up.

This image shows where lettering
balloons once were.

The page is fully painted with stuck on hand written lettering much of which has now separated from the board and is missing. While this makes it more difficult to determine what is happening in the story it appears to be a space fighter training session run by a colonel for an organisation called Eagle Force. Since the colonel character has a kinked eyebrow (and it is published in a Dan Dare book) the assumption is that the character is Dan Dare. However no fans remember a published Dan Dare story in which he works for "Eagle Force" and the artist has not been identified.

Biography author Daniel Tatarsky told downthetubes the art was supplied direct from Dan Dare copyright holder Colin Frewin, and was a piece bought from Sothebys in a whole package of Dan Dare artwork. "We have the full artwork frame," says Colin, "but there is no signature or detail on it."

So what is it, who wrote the story and who drew it?

Since the art is fully painted, it is most likely aimed at an annual or a photogravure publication such as a high quality weekly comic or a summer special. The style suggests 1970s or 1980s although lettering stuck straight on the art board was going out of fashion in the 1980s. But if it isn't from original Eagle, 2000AD or new Eagle, or their annuals or summer specials, then where is it from?

It isn't the unused Dan Dare strip created by Costas for the 2000AD dummy issue which is illustrated in David Bishop's Thrill Power Overload. "None of the dummy material for 2000AD was in colour," he tells us, bar a very bad colour rough. Certainly none of the strip work was in colour, nor was much of it lettered."

Pat Mills, who worked on later incarnations of Dan Dare for 2000AD and new Eagle, is equally mystified, but agrees with us that it seems to echo the kind of action associated with Star Wars X-Wing fighters from the 1977 film. "I think you're right in your analysis," he says. "My guess is this was something devised after I'd left 2000AD, perhaps commissioned by Kelvin Gosnell post Star Lord.

A dummy cover for a proposed 1970s
version of Eagle, using art by Frank
Bellamy.

"Then again, it's quite conservative - despite the Star Wars veneer - so it may have been a traditionalist at Fleetway who devised this."

Could it be an unused story intended for a 1970s Eagle annual, as those annuals had stories increasingly divorced from the original Hampson Dan Dare concept? In 1998, Sufferin' Satellites fanzine published artwork by Frank Bellamy for a dummy of a 1970s Eagle comic that never happened - could it be a strip page from that dummy?

At present, we know more about what it isn't, rather than what it actually is. It certainly wasn't commissioned by New Eagle editor Barrie Tomlinson.

"This doesn't ring a bell," says Barrie, whose more recent work includes writing the recently-ended Scorer for the Mirror. But he thinks he does know who drew it (as do some other Eagle and Battle fans).

"Do my beady old eyes deceive me... is the artwork by Joe Colquhoun?" he suggests, directing us to the artist on Charley's War and early episodes of Johnny Red. "I never realised he worked on Dan Dare."

Battle Picture Weekly Dave Hunt tells us it's a possibility, although he can't be definite. "When the 'New Eagle' was being thought of and during its early production, Barrie and myself invited a clutch of top British artists to have some fun and complete a Dan Dare sample page for our consideration," he tells us. "I can only think that this just might be one of those sample pages.

"While I'm pretty sure that the mighty Joe Colquhoun did complete a Dan Dare page and that this artwork could well be from him, I would not be 100% certain that this is indeed his work. You have to remember that Joe was heavily committed to the incredible Charley's War series at about the time we started 'New Eagle' and subsequently he would have been working day and night on that masterpiece. "

However, while the colouring might suggest Joe's work there are no distinctive Colquhoun faces, and his daughter Jane tells us she has had a look in diaries of the dates we suggested it might have been and there is no mention of a Dan Dare cover. "Dad seemed to list JR (Johnny Red) and CW then series number and whether or not he had an additional cover to do and often how many pages," she says. "But there's no mention at all of Dan Dare cover.

"He probably would have said no because his work load with the other strips was always rather overwhelming, especially if they threw in a cover as well.

"My mother thinks that he would have mentioned it and he didn't, so it may not be by him after all."

We can also tell you it wasn't drawn by two other suggested artists, Oliver Frey or David Pugh.

"It's definitely not me," says Oliver, whose comics art credits include War Picture Library and Trigan Empire. "I only got to do any Dan Dare from around 1980: two Annual covers, some Specials, then stories for the cheap and pulpy Eagle; all with the revamped 'modern' Dan.

"Unfortunately, while I recognise the style, I can't put a name to the creator. But this is still the original look Dan… so it goes back way before my time."

"Despite working on Dare from 1989-1994, I've not come across this piece of art," says David Pugh, who now has scans of much of his art on his Facebook fan page and will soon be selling much of it for charity. "It must be a try out before my time," he suggests, "as I was responsible for bringing in the more macho/aliens look to the strip, which a lot of the traditionalists hated."


Despite help from the comic creators listed above, plus David Bishop, Martin Morgan, Richard Sheaf, the Dan Dare Yahoo Group, at the moment Dan Dare of Eagle Force - and the artist who drew it - remains an intriguing British comics mystery.

If you can identify the page, whether it is from Dan Dare or another comic strip, or suggest who the artist is then feel free to leave a comment.

With thanks to Colin Frewin, Pat Mills, Daniel Tatarsky -- and many others!

Dan Dare © Colin Frewin And Associates

Tube Surfing: Behind the Scenes, Adults Only and Travelling in Japan

A fairly short tube surf today as I'm in deadline hell...

Fans of The Rainbow Orchid by Garen Ewing can get a peek behind the scenes of that comic over at the Forbidden Planet International blog as the cartoonist takes us through his page creation process:

"Writing it out in order like this might make it all seem very organised," he notes, "and it is to a certain extent, but the reality means that it often develops out of order and in bits and pieces here and there."

There's also a chance to go behind the scenes with another comic artist, Oliver Frey, in this interview conducted by Paul Gravett (warning: the piece contains content that means it is stritly for adults only):

"No matter what fantasy figures he is illustrating, whether it’s the dazzling science fiction heroes in Dan Dare, The Trigan Empire or The Terminal Man or the homoerotic hunks Rogue, Bike Boy and others from HIM and Meatmen," writes Gravett in his introduction to the interview.

"Oliver Frey brings a distinctive masculinity and sensuous physicality to his comic art. It was never much of a secret to those who recognised his style and were ‘into the Frey’, although it may come as a surprise to some that this renowned mainstream comics illustrator and newsstand magazine innovator is also Britain’s (and Switzerland’s) greatest contemporary gay porn artist and writer, as accomplished and significant as Tom of Finland before him."

Neill Cameron has recently posted his Japan Manga Diary strip over at his blog. It was first published in Neo magazine in 2006 and is definitely worth a read.

Neill also informs us that he has updated the online shop at his website, which is now selling his various small press comics, including the fantastic Bulldog Empire (written by Jason Cobley).

And finally (told you it was a short one), Joel Meadows, better known as the man behind comics magazine Tripwire now has a website devoted to his photography.

Oliver Frey at ComICA

Exciting news just in: outstanding illustrator Oliver Frey, whose work includes The Trigan Empire has agreed to join the Great British Comics panel at ComICA next Sunday (23rd November), London to discuss his work, which is featured in David Roach's new artbook from Carlton, The Art of War.

Described as one of the most important artists working in the medium of commercial illustration, Frey worked on some of Britain’s greatest comic institutions -- the Fleetway War Picture Library, Dan Dare in Eagle, and The Trigan Empire in Look & Learn (as well as providing many stunning illustrations) following the departure of Don Lawrence. He also created the 1930s-style opening sequence for the film Superman: The Movie.

But for an entire generation of boys in the 1980s, it's Frey’s exuberant art on the covers of cult computer games magazines such as Crash and ZZap that came to express the sheer excitement of the games they played — heroes, space ships, villains and action!

Don't miss this rare opportunity to meet one of the legends of British comics art, who will be signing this book and his own, The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey, after the panel, 3.30-4pm in the ICA Bar.

The panellists at the Great British Comics event will be discussing how the comics of our childhoods stand up to today. Boyfriend, Eagle, Battle, Rick Random and more are being reappreciated thanks to a wave of compilations, artbooks and studies. Steve Holland, David Leach, David Roach and Frey examine the creators behind these wizard wheezes and ripping yarns.

In the second part, cartoonists Adam Brockbank, John and Patrice Aggs, Gary Northfield and Sarah McIntyre from new weekly The DFC compare notes on how to make comics appeal to 21st century kids.

• Tickets cost £6/£5 Concessions / £4 ICA Members.

• Click here to book tickets for the Great British Comics event