Halcyon & Tenderfoot Launches at Newcastle Library
Taking place at the Newcastle City Library (that's across the pond folks) in Bewick Hall will be the Art Heroes Quick Comics workshop. The workshop is aimed at helping keep kids interested in reading. Included in the workshop will be classes about making comics and signings by the creators of Halcyon & Tenderfoot #1. What's Halcyon & Tenderfoot you ask?
The comic is the first Art Heroes book, written by Daniel Clifford and illustrated by Lee Robinson. It's an all ages book aimed at being an ideal entry point for new comics readers. The premise of the comic is about a father and son superhero team that will experiment with genre, storytelling form and length.
The issue will be released quarterly starting this month and will give folks a chance to subscribe to the comic. Physical subscriptions are £12/$19 (each of the issues is £3/$5), which includes postage and packaging and a gift with each issue. The first free gift is a unique A4 sketch by Robinson. Digital subscriptions don’t include free gifts but are priced just £7/$11.
You can purchase subscriptions here. Art Heroes will be appearing at the Bristol Comic Expo in May and the Glasgow Comic Con in June.
Full press release below.
Comic book publishing and workshop facilitation company, Art Heroes, will launch their superhero comic, Halcyon & Tenderfoot, at Newcastle City Library on Saturday 31st March.
The event will take place in City Library’s Bewick Hall and feature an Art Heroes Quick Comics workshop, a ‘How to Make Comics the Art Heroes Way’ presentation, as well as sketching and signing sessions where readers can be the first to buy a copy of the comic.
10:30am - 12:30pm: Quick Comics workshop
A fun workshop for young people who like comics, drawing, writing or just want something to do on a Saturday morning. No previous experience is needed. The workshop is aimed at 8 to 16 year olds and free to attend, but with places limited to just 30 young people, booking early is advised.
12:30pm - 1:00pm: Signing and sketching
A short opportunity for the Quick Comics workshop participants to purchase a signed copy of Halcyon & Tenderfoot or a unique sketch by Lee Robinson.
1:30pm - 3:00pm: Signing and sketching
The main opportunity of the day to pick up a signed copy of Halcyon & Tenderfoot, meet the creators and buy a unique sketch by the artist of the comic book.
3:00pm - 4:00pm: How to Make Comics the Art Heroes Way
The Art Heroes team behind Halcyon & Tenderfoot reveal their process for creating the comic book - from initial idea to drawing techniques to printing and promotion - and everything in between! Perfect for people wanting to make their own comics, or anyone with an interest in comic books or artistic processes.
4:00pm - 4:30pm: Signing and sketching
The last chance to get your hands on a signed copy of Halcyon & Tenderfoot or a unique sketch.
For more information email ArtHeroesUK@gmail.com or contact Newcastle City Library to book workshop places on 0191 277 4100.
Halcyon & Tenderfoot
The first Art Heroes comic book, Halcyon & Tenderfoot, is an all-ages title written by Daniel Clifford with art by Lee Robinson. The comic is intended as an ideal entry point for new comics readers, and a refreshing change for existing comic book fans.
Halcyon & Tenderfoot focusses on a father and son superhero team, with a definitive long-form story to tell - but individual story arcs will experiment with genre, storytelling form and length.
In the British tradition, Halcyon & Tenderfoot is an A4 comic with colour covers and black & white interiors.
A preview issue can be read for free at ArtHeroes.co.uk/comic.
Workshops
Art Heroes workshops were created to help tackle the biggest educational problem facing the UK - engaging young people in reading. Without an interest in reading, young people are less likely to gain the literacy skills they need in later life.
Traditionally comics acted as a bridge between storybooks and prose fiction, but the disappearance of newsstand distribution for comic books and more adult storylines mean that less children are reading comics than ever.
Art Heroes believes that these two things are linked and that by introducing more children to comic books through our workshops, we can capture their imaginations and improve their reading and writing skills along the way.
But our workshops aren’t only intended to encourage reading, they also focus on different creative activites, including storytelling and drawing skills.
Subscriptions
Halcyon & Tenderfoot will be released quarterly in 2012 (March, June, September and December). This regular schedule allows Art Heroes to offer a subscription service - to the physical comics or to digital files.
Physical subscriptions are £12 (each of the issues is £3), which includes postage and packaging and a gift with each issue. The first free gift is a unique A4 sketch by Halcyon & Tenderfoot artist, Lee Robinson.
Digital subscriptions don’t include free gifts but are priced just £7 - a huge saving on the physical issues. Digital subscribers can choose between PDFs, or CBZ files that work with digital comic reading apps.
Subscriptions can be purchased at the launch event, or right now from ArtHeroes.co.uk/storeuk. Current subscribers can pick up the first issue at the launch event, or have it delivered to their home as usual.
Appearances
Art Heroes will be appearing at Bristol Comic Expo in May, and hope to launch issue 2 of Halcyon & Tenderfoot at Glasgow Comic Con in June.
Online
Visit ArtHeroes.co.uk for more information, to buy comics or sign up for a subscription, to read the preview issue of Halcyon & Tenderfoot for free, and to book comic workshops for your school or organisation.
Quotes
“Newcastle City Library is the perfect place for us to launch Halcyon & Tenderfoot. The library is a space where young and old readers are welcome to come along and enjoy books for lots of reasons - and our comic is exactly the same. Young readers will enjoy the fun characters and adventures, but more mature readers will be able to enjoy the depths in the characters and the references in the storylines.
That thought process translates to this event too - we’re running a workshop for young people, but also holding a presentation about making the comic for people of all ages to attend. As well as those things, we’ll be signing copies of the comic, and I’ll be sketching for anyone who is interested.” - Lee Robinson
“This launch event is a great way of combining the different parts of Art Heroes - comic book publishing and creative workshops. Making comic books is a dream for us, and a huge part of our lives - but introducing young people to comics is a passion too. A lot of young people aren’t interested in reading prose, so they completely give up on reading. That’s what I was like. But we aim to introduce people like this to comics and get them inspired about reading, through creating their own stories and artwork.” - Daniel Clifford
The team
Daniel Clifford was born in South Shields, 1986. Having been taught to read by comic books in the 1990s, he now aims to create new comics that can inspire others to read. His published works (including the Sugar Glider comics) have been focussed towards an all-ages audience. He organised comic workshops around North East England for over two years before starting Art Heroes with Lee Robinson.
Lee Robinson was born in Hexham, Northumberland in 1986. He has worked on a number of projects as an illustrator and cartoonist, earning an Animation Foundation Degree in the process. His comic book work prior to establishing Art Heroess is published in Sugar Glider issue 2 and Sugar Glider Stories issue 2.
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