And Molly would love one of these…..

Made the mistake of showing Molly what Jim Medway was given for his Christmas present this year:

She wants one of her own now!

Early Christmas Presents for Molly!

These came in the post yesterday:

Matthew Craig sent a lovely card and calendar for Molly. And Jim Medway sent over a copy of something incredibly special; a limited collection of season 1 of his Crab Lane Crew strips from the DFC that he’s doing for friends and family (and for himself to see what they all look and read like in one place). Molly is genuinely honourd to be amongst the folks that received one.

Thank you so much to Matthew and Jim for making her day. It was like Christmas came early.

Molly gets more stuff – Jim Medway artwork.

The DFC week is ovr, but Molly’s absolutely invaluable contributions continue to be recognised. After spending quite a while this past week and a bit with Molly talking about the DFC, including her interview and various bits of artwork of her favourite characters, I thought you might be interested to see this:

I emailed Jim a while back and talked to him about the DFC and his responses to it. I also mentioned how disappointed Molly was that he wasn’t at either BICS or Thought Bubble. And how she really wanted to get a sketch. He said it would be a pleasure and I could use it as incentive to get some reviews and interview out of Molly.

I used the word “sketch” to mean just that – quick black and white line drawing. I certainly had no idea Jim had something all together more along the lines of finished art. Amazing.

Jim Medway – a bloody marvellous man. Molly is ecstatic. It’s getting framed and going up at the top of the stairs – “So everybody who comes to see us gets to see it” was Molly’s reasoning. Can’t argue with that at all. Of course, this is Louise’s worst nightmare coming true – artwork and comics beginning to creep out into the rest of the house.

A huge thank you to Jim Medway for a beautiful piece.

Jim Medway meets Groening and Spiegelman

Following on from the review of Crab Lane Crews, I just had to post this great cartoon report on Comica by Jim Medway. It seems Jim got a little starstruck meeting Groening and Spiegelman!

Art from Jim Medway’s blog. (c) Jim Medway.

DFC Reviews: Crab Lane Crew by Jim Medway

As part of the extended look at the DFC going on this week here on the blog, I thought it would be nice to look at some of mine and (more importantly) Molly’s favourites. Obviously, this is a quick sampler, as favourites come and go, but overall, here’s what really gets first look each week. Molly decided she was far too busy to take part in this, but spent a long time drawing her favourites for your enjoyment. So without further ado, the first DFC review:

Crab Lane Crew

by Jim Medway

Crab Lane Crew has been mentioned a few times in my talking to various people about the DFC. And rarely in a kind way. People just didn’t like it, didn’t get it, thought it was just two pages of nothing going on. And I initially thought exactly the same thing.

Like I said to Molly when I interviewed her, I didn’t get it at first either. Because essentially it’s just a group of kids standing around and talking. I just couldn’t get past the fact that nothing really happened each week.

But the thing is, Molly absolutely loves it, adores it. It’s one of the first things she reads in the comic. And that’s pretty much the problem with every bit of writing I’ve ever read so far about The DFC. You see, we just don’t really get it. None of us do. We’re too old. It’s not our comic.

(Crab Lane Crew (c) Jim Medway. The Crew doing what they do; talking, laughing, hanging out and being friends).

So I talked to Molly about it and she basically explained it with a shrug and a nonchalant “it’s just nice to see them talk and have fun”. After that I got it. Like she said, Crab Lane Crew is not some hilariously funny thing, no great adventures are had.

But it does have something children value above all else; friendship. Molly sees something in Crab Lane Crew that she sees in her own school and her own friendships. Jim Medway has just tapped quite brilliantly into that. He’s a great educator as well from what I can gather and runs extremely successful workshops for children across Manchester and many of his ideas get road-tested for children on children. Artistically, Crab Lane Crew is deceptively simple as well. But it’s simply wonderful. Molly can recognise every single character and can talk for hours about them all. In fact, when we started talking about this idea to review the strips she decided she was actually far too busy, but would gladly draw the ones she really, really liked.With Crab Lane Crew she just kept going , and going, and going….

But this sort of dedication to a comic, this much love for it’s characters – that’s the thing that will keep the DFC going from strength to strength for hopefully many years to come. Crab Lane Crew is a perfect example of just how tuned into it’s readership this comic is. Don’t listen to us 30 and 40 somethings. Talk to the children who love it.

The DFC at 6 months: the Molly interview….

As I was thinking about doing some articles on the DFC comic I quickly realised that, amongst the relatively few bits of Internet chatter and magazine articles that surround the comic there are very few chances for the actual target market of the comic to have their voices heard. The nearest I could find was on the DFC website itself in the section for the subscribers themselves to write fan letters.

Of course, this actually cuts to the quick of the main problem with the DFC. The people who need to be buying it and talking about it can’t because it’s all online. Obviously I’m not hearing much from the core readership in the 8 – 12 range. Or even much from anyone under 30.

So to try and counterbalance this, and because it was a fun thing to do I sat my daughter down in one of our local coffee shops, put a milkshake in front of her (banana), bought her a cake (chocolate) and, once the plate was empty, started firing questions at her.

The DFC readership interview with Molly Bruton, aged 9. 31st October 2008

First of all Molly; a little background …. What comics do you like and why? (see, I’ve read the Comics Journal and know how to open an interview……)
Owly, Scary Godmother, Calvin & Hobbes, Mutts, Hondle, the High School Musical comic in the magazine, The Beano especially the Bash Street Kids.The Simpsons comic. I like the way they mix the pictures and words and I like them when they make me laugh.

What did you think when I first told you about us getting the DFC?
Cool, I’ll give it a go.

The DFC has been going 23 issues now, how are enjoying it?
I like it. I like how there’s a good mix of comics inside. And I like coming home on Friday after school and opening it up. It’s really exciting when you open it up and see who’s on cover. It’s nice that they give everybody a turn on the cover. That’s fair.

(Vern & Lettuce from the DFC. Story & Art (c) Sarah McIntyre)

What are your favourite strips?
Vern &Lettuce, Crab Lane Crew, Sausage & Carrots, Lil’ Cutie, Sneaky, the Zoo one (New at the Zoo), Strange World (Strange, Strange World Of Weird), Good Dog Bad Dog and the silly animal one in the fist few issues (Super Animal Adventure Squad), Fish Head Steve. But Vern & Lettuce, Crab Lane Crew and Sausage & Carrot are my favourite favourites.

Pretty much all of those you mentioned are very cartoony and funny. And except for Good Dog Bad Dog all of them aren’t long strips which continue the same story week after week. Why do you like these more than the other strips?
I don’t really know, they’re just funnier. They’re all based on animals rather than people and I like that more.

Why do you like Vern & Lettuce so much?
The characters are great. Fat sheep playing a Tuba and a bunny with lots of little bunnies following her around. Very funny. I love the colours of the artwork. And I love little things like the swirly dotty fleece on Vern and the patterns on Lettuce’s dress.

(Crab Lane Crew on the cover of the DFC issue 19. (C) Jim Medway.)

When I first read Crab Lane Crew I didn’t get it at all. And it was like it for a few weeks. I just didn’t see any story in it, just friends standing around chatting. But talking to you about it previously has made me a fan of it as well. What made you like it?
I like the way it’s about a group of friends hanging around and talking about stuff. It’s good that there’s a lot of emotion in the crew. Like when Scott left and all of the friends he left behind felt really sad. And even though a girl replaced him in the gang it was really true to real life the way that she didn’t fit right in straight away and took a while to become friends. And I like how the names really suit all the characters. Maybe it’s just meant to be for kids Dad?

Thanks Molly.

(That told me. Interestingly a lot of reviews of Crab Lane Crew pick it apart for exactly the reasons Molly loves it. But the reviewers aren’t the comics target age group and Molly is. Which I reckon means Jim Medway’s got it pretty much spot on.)

(Sausage & Carrots from the DFC. Story and Art (c) Simone Lia.)

What about Sausage & Carrots?
That’s just funny and silly. Silly in a good way. It’s very short and I’d like to see more. But it’s really good.

Do you read all of it each week?
Not every single comic, just the cartoon ones, I don’t like the adventure type ones yet.

Would you like to see anything different in the comic?
No, I think it’s very good. I don’t like it all, but that’s okay because maybe the boys would like the comics I don’t like.

Do you know anyone else who reads the DFC?
Just you

Why do you think that is?
It doesn’t have that much advertising, no adverts on TV. Posters around town.

Do you think your friends would like it & how would you get more people reading it?
Some of them would. Maybe they could give out free copies to schools so that my friends could see more of them. Or sell it in shops.

Do your friends read comics?
Not really, they read proper books and novels. They get magazines from the newsagents.

Okay, thanks very much for that Molly. Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Can I have another cake?

No, I meant anything else you want to say about the DFC?
Not really, it’s just really, really good and I think I should have another cake for doing this.

We left it there. She got the cake.

The DFC is published weekly. It’s very, very good. Molly says so. To get a copy you can either subscribe online or by telephone. You can also get individual issues online and of course, for this week only; Wed 26th November to Tue the 2nd December, you can pick up the latest issue in Tescos.

Jim Medway’s comic teachings …..

Matthew Badham recently pointed me in the direction of Jim Medway’s comics blog. Jim, you may or may not know is an excellent cartoonist currently engaged in work with the DFC amongst other things.

But Matthew was specifically pointing out the series of blog posts on his work in schools. These are on his blog as The Sessions. In a few very entertaining posts he takes us through the processes he uses to get children across a wide age range (KS2 – KS4 and beyond) really excited about comics and art. I love his style of teaching and the simple and effectve methods he’s developed along the way. Take for example his post Character Brainstorm, on pattern recognition of the Simpsons and Spongebob from just a couple of very simple lines. Or a little futrther on, using the example of Charles Schultz having to draw Charlie Brown 64,000 times in his lifetime to explain why simplicity and economy of line and style is a must in cartooning.

Jim Medway’s website, his blog. You should also head over to Matthew Badham’s blog where he had an interview with Jim earlier this year.