London Laydeez Sept 2017 by Pam Kaur Gibbons

laydeezdocomics | Posted on September 28, 2017 |

Hi! I’m Pam Kaur Gibbons, a comic enthusiast and a teacher of English to international students based in London. I tweet @kaurgibbons

LDC at The Cartoon Museum was exciting as ever:

The Question: Something interesting/funny about your name OR you’re favourite plant
The audience was packed with floral names: Fleur, Poppy, Lily to name a few.

Comic artist
Illustrator
Focuses on the formula of life experience + creativity = what?
Loves drawing mugs of tea: “keep going for hours”
“Why write autobio comics?” Comics lend themselves to autobiographical work in that they can leave a legacy for posterity. Also, important for working in the Here and Now and wanting to change something in the current society
Aware of the stigma around mental health and wondered how is this illustrated?

‘The Butterfly Stage’ Graphic Novel

Trying to be truthful in the images being used
Really important to tell it through a true story
Took a while to feel comfortable to tell the story
‘Worrying’ represented in a cyclical way
Often the images associated with psychosis are horrendous and sensationalised and did not depict her personal experience
Use of images as a symbolisation of psychosis but wanted to be careful that they would not cause a trigger
Use of the flower: “something alive is happening in my mind”
Being truthful and not a cliché
It focuses on transformation

EMMA SAVILLE

Education Director at Positive Negatives

Director: Dr Benjamin Dix, Senior Fellow at SOAS
Founded in 2012
Ethno-graphic research non-profit
Make comic animations about real-life stories
Due to human rights’ implications and security issues, turn photos into graphic illustrations
Capture people’s stories whilst protecting their identity
Focus of comics are humanitarian issues, social issues, race, natural disasters and more
Use comics to transform policy makers’ research or statistics to be more accessible
Comics humanise the statistics and bring to life the issues
Get the wider general audience to critically engage with the issues
Work with a wide range of artists from around the world to be culturally appropriate to the story being portrayed
Use mixed medium such as real photos mixed with illustration to further the impact of the story being represented

Participatory methodology:

Go out to meet refugees / individuals / activists all over the world
Work with same-sex interpreters
Work with same-sex artists
Take lots of photos from field work as most researchers are not artists
Take contextual information for the artists, if they are unable to come out for field-work
Write the script
Take that back to the respondent and get them to check for accuracy
Do the same for the storyboard
Take the draft storyboard to the respondent, to ensure visual accuracy
At the end of the process give the respondent a hard copy of the work
Talk about the process to the respondent, and ask them “What it’s like seeing your story in front of you?” and “Has there been any effect on the community?”

Established in 2016
Focus on the UK education national curriculum
Over 60 published lesson plans that are available free
Teachers can filter by: age, topic, length of lesson
Up to 10 contextual links within each lesson plan, such as maps, research, infographics, and videos, to bring the issue to life.

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