In our capacity as Patrons of Reading, we recently had the pleasure of returning to Northfield Academy for a follow up visit, doing an in-depth workshop with S1 pupils and also introductory comic workshops with P7s.
We promised to compile a list of recommended graphic novels for the school, and indeed, any library interested in extending their graphic novel section (or in starting one) is welcome to use it too.
Pupils of Northfield Academy busy reading their class set of Louis – Red Letter Day
Metaphrog recommends 12 Graphic Novels for Young Readers:
1. The Arrival by Shaun Tan
2. Coraline by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell
3. The Rainbow Orchid by Garen Ewing
4.Adolf by Osamu Tezuka
5. Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi
6. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and Michel Plessix
7. Alex Rider by Anthony Horowitz, Antony Johnston, Kanako and Yuzuru
8. Bone by Jeff Smith
9. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Conan Doyle, Ian Edginton and Ian Culbard
10. Silverfin by Charlie Higson and Kev Walker
11. Smile by Raina Telgemeier
12. The Phoenix Comic magazine by various
We compiled this list with 10-14 year olds in mind, but these titles are suitable for older readers too.
Pupils of Northfield Academy reading Louis – Night Salad
John in a chess duel in between sessions at Northfield Academy
Last year we were made Patrons of Reading at Northfield Academy in Aberdeen and, as the first ever graphic novelists to fill such a role,we were honoured and delighted. We’ll be working closely with the school for the next three years to encourage reading and creativity.
Our first author visits in this new capacity took place at the end of January and were great fun. We had the opportunity to work with the whole of the school’s first year, in class-sized groups, as well as meet with the teachers for an informal lunch where we talked about our hopes and about the patronage.
Northfield Academy have adopted us and we have adopted the school. Everyone made us feel extremely welcome and it was exciting to see so much interest and receive so much support from the school. The head teacher, librarians and teaching staff in general were all really enthusiastic and engaged.
To start our patronage, we sent the school a class set of Louis – Red Letter Day graphic novels and some signed posters, along with an activity sheet for the classroom.
We’re looking forward to returning for a follow up session with S1 pupils and for sessions with Primary pupils too!
A huge thank you to Mandy Wilson for choosing us as patrons, to Mr Watt and the art department, and to head teacher Neil Hendry.
In 2011 we worked on the graphic novel Skint! with playwright Gowan Calder. The book was commissioned and published by the Scottish Book Trust and distributed free in Scotland. It was such a big success that Standard Life Charitable Trust and the Scottish Book Trust commissioned a second Skint!, this time for England. Skint! for England was released in January 2014 and is available in print (45000 copies) and online.
We were commissioned once more, along with Gowan Calder, to rework the book to suit the different demographics in England. A few characters were changed throughout the book, and Sandra took the opportunity of reworking the colouring too while she was changing the drawings and Gowan updated and refreshed the script.
Cover for the new version of Skint!
Skint! is a free graphic novel resource to help people develop good money skills and prevent them from sinking into debt, launched in England by Scottish Book Trust and Standard Life Charitable Trust.
Skint! is athought-provoking graphic novel that harnesses the power of stories based on real life experiences to bring money management to life. It is targeted at the adult learning sector in England to help tutors support 16-26 year olds, with a particular focus on young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs).
Page from the new version of Skint!
Marc Lambert, CEO of Scottish Book Trust,said:
“Skint! uses the power of language and drama to engage young people in financial decision-making, enabling them to develop some of the fundamental skills and understanding they need to help them keep track of their finances,to plan ahead and think through the impact of financial decisions. The aim is to help young adults, in particular reluctant readers, to develop their literacy, numeracy and financial capability, in the hope that this will help them on the way to a future unburdened by money worries.
The Remaindererarrived today. A new six track EP from The Fall. Originally slated for release on the 11th of November and weighted with a sense of expectation after receiving radio airplay. It would be unkind to make comparisons with Slates – after all it has been 32 years and fans of the group tend to hold that particular disc in very high regard. Neither an LP nor a single it was excluded: the release missed all kinds of charts but touched all kinds of hearts. This listener was not even 16 and in the years before everyone had electronic gadgets John Peel was an evening’s entertainment.
The Fall’s previous 10” release was the marvellous Masquerade back in 1998 and this vinyl was also accompanied by two cd singles which more or less made up a mini LP. The Remainderer can also be enjoyed in different formats.
The title track lopes, with an amazing double drummer sound reminiscent of Hex Enduction Hour-era tunes, and throbs over squirting squelching and droning electronics. The vocals are very much instruments here. The voice growling and gargling, hissing sibilants and rasping the Rs, on the cd the backing vocals are multi-tracked versions of the main vocal refrains and we learn “it was a good day… whatever that is”, while on the promo cd and the 10” vinyl, there are various backing singers “manipulating to leaving” or “manipulate into leaving”. Or indeed both! Both versions of the song are stunning, simple ideas welded together by a group having fun and sounding relaxed, assured and about to fall apart in an exciting way.
Exciting is the word that sums this EP up. It’s invigorating.
Second track Amorator!is so speed driven it’s jaggy juju guitars and drums almost trip over themselves before blissing out with vocals oscillating from whispers to growls. There’s something swaggering and punky about The Fall on this release, like the New York Dolls on Jet Boy blended with dirty heavy metal and a healthy dose of rockabilly.
Mr Rode rumbles in like a slower-paced strangely filtered Motorhead before chiming, swaying guitars and vocals kick off and repeat in layers to lift the song in a melodic euphoria that builds and builds wrapping ghostly vocal mutterings before taking off to a powerful climax. A Fall classic.
Another instant classic cements the centre of this six track EP. Remembrance R opens with warbling and gargling then plays melodic vocal against a massive bass line, recalling Joy Division but also Perverted by Languageand spinning a whole new musical web of its own across uncharted territory.
Although we are treated to a race through two Gene Vincent covers, Mark E Smith is channelling an amphetamine-fuelled Elvis and sampling his own group’s live archive. Race With the Devil appeared on the Backdropbootleg – performed at John Peel’s 50th birthday party many moons ago.
The final track Touchy Pad is a modern psychedelic classic, perfect pop in under two and a half minutes with ever-so-slightly off key singing, declaiming and backwards guitar offsetting the clear leading melodies.
As always with the lyrics, worlds are suggested, new literatures are revealed, and repeated listenings alter and add to these glimpses. Sounds and ideas combine with the music in intelligent, innovative and interesting ways. These aren’t just songs these are little works of art.
The Fall sit well with The Velvet Underground and with Captain Beefheart as important cultural examples of music and art and as a group are a vital creative force. Re-mit took The Fall into the top 40, back into the charts. The Remainderer should be X-mas number one. Where some of Re-mit’s tracks could be seen as anti-music, this astonishingly lively EP is an antidote to the anodyne, sterile world of auto-tuned blandness and unhappy twerking that passes in some places for culture.
We’ve written and illustrated a couple of graphic shorts: The Glass Case and The Little Match Girl, from the Hans Christian Andersen tale, which we’ve compiled into a 20 page comic called Winter’s Tales.
The A5 booklet is a limited edition of 200, signed and numbered, and you can buy it throughout December only.
We are delighted to have been named Patrons of Reading at Northfield Academy. It’s the first time that graphic novelists have been selected for such a role, and we’re really pleased that Northfield Academy chose us.
Over the next three years, we’ll be encouraging pupils to read more graphic novels, which in turn, we feel, will encourage them to read more in general. We’ll be starting our patronage with a series of workshops in January 2014.
Here’s an article from The Evening Express announcing the news.
Evening Express article 28/11/2013
The partnership even received a mention in the Scottish Parliament!
Scottish Parliament mention of our partnership with Northfield Academy as Patrons of Reading
Neil Hendry, head teacher of Northfield Academy said: “We are delighted that the talented duo from Metaphrog has agreed to work with the school in this special reading initiative. By working in partnership with Metaphrog over the next three years we hope pupils will be inspired and encouraged to read and be creative through the style and illustrations of graphic novels.”
School Librarian Mandy Wilson added: “Metaphrog’s first visit to the school will be in January [2014] and pupils and staff can’t wait to start working with them in what will be a very exciting project.”
Many thanks to Mandy for thinking of us for this exciting role! The brilliant children’s authors who are already Patrons of Reading in Scotland are Barry Hutchison, Linda Strachan, Cathy MacPhail, Nicola Morgan, Victoria Campbell and Lynne Rickards. Delighted to be joining such great company.
In other news, we have just returned from a two week event tour. Firstly, we were in the Netherlands, at the Eindhoven International School, where we delivered a series of workshops and also an in-depth lecture on Persepolis. The school has one of the best libraries we have ever seen – including a fabulous graphic novel section – and International Human Rights Declaration #19 imprinted on its wall.
The library at the Eindhoven International School
Secondly we were busy for Book Week Scotland 2013. Now in its second year Book Week Scotland has hundreds of fantastic events all over Scotland, and we delivered nine graphic novel workshops in schools and libraries in Glasgow, Wester Hailes, MacDuff, Dyce and Dundee in the space of six days.
Metaphrog workshop session in Aberdeenshire
We always love travelling and had a fantastic time – and returned inspired and ready to write and draw new stories!
In this blog we’ll talk a little bit about the creation of the Time To Shine: Graphic Novel, which we produced for Creative Scotland. We were approached by Creative Scotland well over a year ago, and were asked to place a bid, for the work of creating a graphic novel which would support Scotland’s new arts strategy for ages 0-25.
Cover spread for Time To Shine: Graphic Novel
The idea was to produce an entertaining and accessible story which would appeal to a wide range of ages and backgrounds, a story to inspire young people to get involved in the arts and a story that supported and underlined the key themes of the strategy itself.
First we read hundreds of pages of documentation, research carried out by Creative Scotland with young people and adults, and the strategy document as it continued to evolve. We digested and condensed all this material into a story.
Time To Shine: Graphic Novel research material
John wrote a script – we discussed and developed the story together while walking around the park while John was writing the script. From this, Sandra created pages of layout. The layouts had to be approved before we could get started on the actual finished artwork. We also attended focus group meetings with young people at Young Scot, where we discussed the story and received feedback, particularly on the dialogue. We were pleased and encouraged that the young people liked what we’d written and drawn.
Time To Shine: Graphic Novel script and layout
Sandra also drew some thumbnails at various stages to work out how best to tell the story. We had a limited amount of pages to fit everything into, and also a very limited amount of time to complete the final artwork – 64 pages in under 4 months from planning to finished pages!
Time To Shine: Graphic Novel thumbnails
Here are a couple of page extracts from the graphic novel.
Time To Shine: Graphic Novel page extract
Time To Shine: Graphic Novel page extract
We also had fun with the design of the book and tried to incorporate and represent as many different artforms as possible. These are peppered throughout the story, but also in the actual design of the book. See if you recognise the artists and artforms we referred to in the following spreads.
We’re delighted to be able to share the news of our commission to produce a graphic novel, by Creative Scotland. This morning saw the launch of Time To Shine: Scotland’s first youth arts strategy.
Time To Shine: Graphic Novel is a part of the strategy along with an animation produced by The Gates Film and The World of Arthur Cox. You can view this animation, along with more information about the strategy on: creativescotland.com/time-to-shine
Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop stated she hoped the strategy would “enrich young people’s lives through the arts and creativity.”
We were originally commissioned over a year ago to produce a work of graphic fiction which would inspire young people and encourage involvement in the arts. The story had to encompass the key themes of the strategy.
The challenge was to create something which would appeal to children of all ages, and we also wanted the story to stand on its own as a good read – something entertaining! Our task was made easier by the fact that the subject – the arts – is something we have felt passionately about all our lives. We drew inspiration from the many graphic novel workshops and talks we do in schools, and were also advised by young people from Young Scot and Creative Scotland.
Page extract from Time To Shine: Graphic Novel
It is a story of transformation, in which the arts empower people. We also raised questions such as what is art? and, can you make a living from the arts?
Sam is 14 and he likes all the usual things any teenage boy does… football, music, girls… and avoiding Declan and his gang! He likes to ‘parp’ a bit on his trumpet but it’s his sister who’s the talented one. Jen is 17 and plays guitar in an all-girl band. When their school organises a talent show, Jen’s band are favourites but a last minute hitch means the keyboard player can’t play, so how will the day be saved!?
This original story forms part of Scotland’s arts strategy for ages 0-25 and captures the spirit and energy of young people and looks at the world of arts through their eyes. The arts have the ability to inspire individuals and have a positive impact on communities. Time To Shine: Graphic Novel looks at what barriers may stop engagement in the arts and its positive benefits by exploring three key themes: Let me in!, Help me shine!, Take me there! If you would like to find out more visit: www.creativescotland.com
Page extract from Time To Shine: Graphic Novel
Here is the online version of Time To Shine: Graphic Novel.
We are honoured to have been a small part of this exciting strategy, and will be posting more soon, with extracts and a bit more behind the scenes information.
We had an amazing week travelling regularly to Edinburgh for Stripped, the comic strand of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, attending the mini comic fair and also contributing to the blog with reviews and interviews. Highlights included interviewing Chris Ware and Joe Sacco.
We’ve met Joe on half a dozen occasions over the years but had only seen Chris once before in Angoulême. It was brilliant to have a chat with them both before the interviews and also to hear them in conversation later that evening with The Herald’s Teddy Jamieson.
The mini comic fair running over the last weekend of the festival was highly enjoyable and it is encouraging to see so many cartoonists and comic creators displaying quality work. Perhaps even more encouraging was the diversity of visitors. Even though the fair was located off-site: many of the book festival organisers paid a visit as did more than a few non-comic fans. The concentration of events over the two days meant Charlotte Square was literally swarming with comic creators and comics professionals.
Events were well attended and conspicuously attracted people from among the culturally curious at the festival.
We also wrote a piece for The List on the Stripped weekend events and on the rise of graphic novels, and Bryan and Mary Talbot, and David Fickling were generous with their time, providing us with some quotes.
The quotes were edited to fit the article’s word count, so here are the short interviews in full with illustrations by Sandra:
Drawing of Mary Talbot by Sandra
Metaphrog: You both won the Costa Biography Award this year. What are your thoughts on it (aside from “It’s great!”) and what it means for comics?
Mary Talbot: For me personally, it’s amazing that my first foray into graphic novel writing should be so well received. But for the medium as a whole the award is another accolade, which is brilliant – further recognition of comics as a valid art form. I guess it’s because graphic novels have proliferated over the past ten years or so. There’s an enormous range of high-quality material available these days, in practically every genre and style you could think of. Like Bryan’s Tale of One Bad Rat, both Costa-shortlisted graphic novels don’t just engage existing readers of comics. They have styles that make them readily accessible to a general reader and subject matter that gives them wide appeal.
Drawing of Bryan Talbot by Sandra
Metaphrog: Bryan, you have been in the business for many years. What do think of the current interest in graphic novels? Bryan Talbot: I don’t think it’s current, I think it’s here to stay. As opposed to other times in the form’s history when there have been brief bursts of interest by the general book-reading public, we now have enough quality books in a wide enough gamut of styles and genres to sustain this interest. Metaphrog: You’ve spoken at EIBF several times already, and EIBF have had a few comics events each year. What do think Stripped means for comics? Bryan Talbot: It’s yet another example of how graphic novels are becoming increasingly accepted as a valid art form and a timely celebration of the comics medium.
Drawing of David Fickling by Sandra
David Fickling took time to tell us about The Phoenix and how it has been received:
The Phoenix has been brilliantly received. Not just by children, but also parents, teachers, librarians as well as authors and artists from all over the place. I have always believed passionately that children love comics and brilliant comic stories and I can only see the market for children’s comics going from strength to strength. We need more comics, ones for younger readers and ones for older too. We need more publishers to produce brilliant graphic novels and comic books for the young. Children want and love comics so it’s up to us to give them the best ones we can. In other countries these markets are huge. Why not here too? We lost our comics, let’s bring them back!
I hope the future holds more comics for everyone. For adults and children but especially children. And I also think comics are perfectly suited to the rush of tablets and devices that we’re all becoming fluent with. Those hi def retina screens were made to portray wonderful artwork and to inspire a new generation of creators. I think this is an exciting time for comics in general and I hope in the years to come The Phoenix will be but one of many brilliant publications delighting people of all ages up and down the country!
We very much enjoyed interviewing Stephen Collins (The Gigantic Beard That was Evil) and Garen Ewing (The Rainbow Orchid), and also reviewing several festival events.
We’re delighted to announce that we have been included on Canongate’s Future 40 list of storytellers.
Canongate’s 40th birthday list celebrates the best of contemporary Scottish storytellers – with 40 multi-disciplinary creatives they’re banking on defining the next four decades.
Delighted to be included and to be in such good company. The list also includes: Tom Gauld, Will Morris, William Goldsmith and Team Girl Comics, for graphic novels, Kirsty Logan for Short Stories/Journalism, Ryan Van Winkle for poetry, RM Hubbert, James Graham (The Twilight Sad) for music and many more.
“To celebrate our 40th anniversary Canongate brings together some of the best storytellers we know. Authors Michel Faber, Matt Haig, Alasdair Gray and Michael Smith will be joined by poet and ex Arab Strap musician Aidan Moffat and R M Hubbert, Rick Redbeard from The Phantom Band and very special guests. Jeremy Dyson (League of Gentleman, Psychoville, Ghost Stories), will take us over to the dark side with his twisted tales and classical pianist James Rhodes, whose debut album, Razor Blades, Little Pills and Big Pianos reached No 1 in the iTunes classical chart, will give an exclusive performance. The event will also showcase original films featuring Tilda Swinton, Miranda July and the late Gil Scott Heron, plus live art and bibliotherapy by Ella Bertoud, author of The Novel Cure. Hosted by South Bank Associate Artist and official poet for the London Olympics Lemn Sissay, we hope you can join us for what promises to be a highly memorable and enjoyable evening and be part of Canongate’s journey to the other side.”
