To celebrate World Book Day, our learners were visited from London based writer illustrator and comic creator Richy K Chandler, for an interactive masterclass and workshop on comic book writing. Learners also enjoyed bookmark designing, among other activities.  

With a wealth of experience in his field, Richy K has had books published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers and Singing Dragon as well as comic and illustration clients including HarperCollins Publishers, Eco Kids Planet Magazine, Titan Comics, Universal Music and University of the Arts London. 

For the masterclass, our visitor had all the year nine learners in the main hall discussing and demonstrating the development process when designing a comic book. A showcase of talent, bravery and creativity, Richy K was taking live suggestions from the learners and impressively drew different objects and characters from these suggestions. He discussed how familiar images, such as a block of cheese, are commonly presented in comic book writing. Our visitor also shared some of his published comics with the learners and the showed the process of working through initial designs to reaching the final draft.  

During the workshop, learners in year 9 and 10 were invited to take part in designing their very own comic strip. The session began with a warmup exercise where learners had to draw a giraffe in only 10 seconds. Through this exercise, Richy K discussed the characteristics that make an animal like a giraffe recognisable for the reader.

He went onto explore plot in a narrative and outlined the key elements to drive a story; character, goal, problem and solution. At the conclusion of the session, learners used the skills gained to design the second frame to follow on from a frame that depicted a character catching something whilst fishing. In the next frame, learners used imagination and wit to come up with various things that this character may have caught during their fishing trip.  

Not only was this session insightful for those who want to pursue creative or comic book writing, but also for digital media learners who are interested in careers involving 2D and 3D design, graphic design and many more careers.