Comic Boom - Comics in Education

Send us Fan Mail Lucy chats to comic writer and artist Ryan Estrada . Ryan Estrada is an artist, author, and adventurer. His books include Banned Book Club, Occulted, and the Student Ambassador series. He has worked for Star Trek, Popeye, Flash Gordon, and Garfield. You can find Ryan on Twitter/X: @ryanestrada And on Instagram: @ryanestradadotcom  Links to everything  discussed in this episode  ca...

Send us Fan Mail Lucy chats to graphic novel author and academic Mary Talbot . Dr Mary Talbot is the author of the graphic novel Dotter of her Father’s Eyes (Jonathan Cape 2012), illustrated by her husband, award winning comic artist Bryan Talbot. She is an internationally acclaimed scholar who has published widely on language, gender and power, particularly in relation to media and consumer cultu...

Send us Fan Mail Lucy chats to Alex Harris from BBC Teach and Mike Stirling from Beano Studios . Today - we have another duo - of a different kind. I’ll be joined by Alex Harris Executive Producer, BBC Teach, part of the BBC’s Children’s and Education department and home to thousands of free curriculum-mapped classroom videos. BBC Teach hostsLive Lessons, Class Clips as well as many big campaigns,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Lucy chats with creators of The Inflatables, Beth Garrod and Jess Hitchman . Beth Garrod is the author of the Super Awkward series. After growing up in Worcester, UK, she has worked around the world, including the USA, India, South Africa, and Canada producing everything from mental health campaigns, to music TV shows for brands including MTV and the BBC. She now l...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Lucy chats with creators of the Agent Moose series - Mo O'Hara and Jess Bradley. Jess is an illustrator, comic artist and writer living in Torquay, Devon with her husband and son. Jess draws and writes for The Phoenix Comic and has appeared in over 300 issues. She also writes weekly for The Beano … In 2021 she won a Blue Peter Book Award for her work on A Day...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Lucy chats to lecturer in primary education and PhD student Helen Jones . We discuss the power that can be found in giving children opportunity to write comics for pleasure - and what we can find out about their views on the world around them through exploring what they write. Helen draw on her action research with children in her comics club to share a compelling...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is part of a collaboration with Lakes International Comics Arts Festival. Lucy chats to writer, illustrator and educator Sayra Begum Sayra Begum is an illustrator, writer and educator based in Nottingham. She teaches Illustration at Falmouth University and Comics at De Montfort University. Begum released her debut graphic novel, Mongrel in 2020 (supported by ACE, publ...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is part of a collaboration with Lakes International Comics Arts Festival. Lucy chats to writer and illustrator Emma Reynolds Emma Reynolds is an illustrator and author based in Manchester, UK. Her latest book Drawn to Change The World: 16 Youth Climate Activists, 16 Artists , is a middle grade graphic novel with each activist bio illustrated by an acclaimed artist fro...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Lucy chats to writer and illustrator Victoria Jamieson . Victoria is an writer and illustrator from Pensylavia UK - most well known in the UK for her graphic novels roller girl and when stars are scattered. In this interview we talk about her journey to becoming a graphic novelist, her sources of in spiration and her process for creating graphic novels and we spend...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Lucy chats to cartoonist Marc Jackson.  Marc lives and works in Macclesfield with my wife Jane and children Nancy and Florence. He created comics and characters for the BEANO, Aces Weekly, Hey kids comics, the Brooklyn red hook star revue, Freaky magazine, SCARFFF comics newspaper, and the Phoenix. In 2017 he was awarded a grant from the Arts Council to create the...

Send us Fan Mail This week Lucy chats to art educator Hester Harrington about her approach to using comics in the art classroom. Hester Harrington, Art Educator and Co-Producer for Little LICAF - is part of the LICAF team responsible for comic content for youngsters, family and educators as part of the Lakes International Comic Art Festival year round programme of events. She is also a part-time s...

Send us Fan Mail This week Lucy chats to the brilliant Dave Shelton - author and illustrator - to discuss how his life-long love of comics has influenced his work His slapstick comedy noir comic strip Good Dog, Bad Dog has appeared in The DFC comic, The Phoenix , and the Guardian , and is collected in two books by David Fickling Books. His debut prose novel for children, A Boy and a Bear in a Boat...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Lucy is joined by American educator Shveta Miller. Shveta Miller is a national literacy leader and serves on the Governor’s Council for Educator Advancement in Oregon as a professional learning facilitator. A former high school Language Arts teacher and author of Hacking Graphic Novels: 8 Ways to Teach Higher-Level Thinking with Comics and Visual Storytelling , she...

Send us Fan Mail A double Lucy episode! This week Lucy chats to specialist Manga librarian from Peters the bookseller, Lucy Forrester. Lucy Forrester has been a children's librarian since 2006, and a comics fan since she can remember. Working for Peters Booksellers, she has made comics and manga her specialist field, and has taken part in conferences, conventions, and book awards to promote a...

Send us Fan Mail This week Lucy talks to Natalie Scarlett about Afro Manga Club - a joint project run by The National Literacy Trust and Black Heritage Support Service for young people in Birmingham AND we hear from the young people themselves as the podcast hits the road and visits the club in session (huge thanks to roving reporter and National Literacy Trust Hub Manager Kyle!). You can find out...

Send us Fan Mail Lucy chats with Sara Alfageeh , co-creator of the fantastic YA graphic novel Squire . They discuss her creative process, her collaborative process with co-creator Nadia Shammas and the impact and importance of representation. Sara Alfageeh is a Jordanian-American illustrator and creative director in San Francisco. She is passionate about history, teaching, girls with swords, and t...

Send us Fan Mail Lucy chats to primary school teacher and graphic novel enthusiast,  Richard Ruddick . We discuss  his approach to including comics and graphic novels in the curriculum and encouraging access to them for reading for pleasure. Richard Ruddick is a year six teacher from Norfolk who is passionate about using graphic novels to develop passionate readers. He runs a blog about how he uti...

Send us Fan Mail In this special BONUS EPISODE Lucy chats to Paul Register , founder of the Excelsior Award , the biggest book  award for graphic novels and manga in the UK! What makes the awards so special is that from the expertly curated shotlists, children and young people vote for the winning book in each category themselves - a great tool for reading engagement. In this episode Paul talks ab...

Send us Fan Mail Lucy chats to Commisioning Editor at David Fickling Books , Anthony Hinton. We discuss the recent boom in popularity of british graphic novels - including  the success of Jamie Smart and Neill Cameron. Anthony is part of the team at The Phoenix Comic, where he edits the comic books produced through the DFB/Phoenix partnership, including Jamie Smart's number 1 bestselling Bunn...

Send us Fan Mail Lucy chats to comic artist and creator of the Bumble and Snug series of graphic novels, Mark Bradley . Mark Bradley is a comic artist and writer, and creator of the Bumble & Snug graphic novel series. He grew up reading stories about ghosts and monsters, and promptly decided that he preferred them to humans  The first of book in the Bumble & Snug graphic novel series was s...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I am joined by Neil Cohn, Neil Cohn is an American cognitive scientist best known for his pioneering research on the overlap in cognition between graphic communication and language. He is the author of 2 graphic novels, over 80 academic papers, and 3 academic books, including The Visual Language of Comics (2013) and the 2021 Eisner-nominated Who Understands Comics?...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode Lucy speaks to primary school teacher and writer of Slug Boy Saves the World , Mark A Smith. We discuss Mark's love of all things Marvel and how that passion for comics has influenced his teaching, his writing...and his life in general! Mark A. Smith was born in Dundee, where he works as a primary school teacher. He lives in Fife and spends most of...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode Lucy speaks to the hugely talented comic artist, Rebecca Burgess - mostly focusing on her latest middle grade graphic novel, Speak Up . Rebecca Burgess is a comic artist and illustrator working in the UK, creating award winning published and small press work. Along with drawing comics for their day job, Rebecca also loves drawing webcomics in their free...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I chat with PhD student Meher Shiblee. Meher is a second year, full time, PhD student at LCC, UAL. Her research topic is titled; Considering 21st Century Muslim Superheroines and Issues of Representation: Comics, Creators and Readers in Context.  In addition to her studies, she has worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and an Associate Lecturer at her university,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I chat with writer and school librarian Lucas Maxwell . Lucas Maxwell has been reading comics since he was very young and living in Nova Scotia, Canada. Now, he gets to promote comics and other great books to kids in the high school library that he's  managed in South London, UK for the past nine years.  He's also a writer for Book Riot, a D&D Dungeon...