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Wow, the Pop Up Festival site looks AMAZING! I went today for the schools and press launch, and got to see how our COMICS BIG-TOP OF AWESOME is coming along! It's all happening this weekend, and the comics festival-within-a-festival is just Saturday, so do come along! And did I mention that it's all FREE? Details on the Pop Up Festival website. And click here for our fabulous comics creator lineup and the day's comics event schedule!



The three Central Saint Martins art students are working their tails off to turn it into a fun comic space, and I was so thrilled when I walked in. Here's the fabulous team: Isa Caruncho, Maddy Rita Faye and Chiahui Liao.



Look at these critters, aren't they brilliant?! I was trying not to get in the way of their work, but I couldn't help running around examining everything.



And check out these Story Wheels! There will be three of them, and people can spin them (like fruit machines) and combine the words to get ideas for their stories, such as a deep-sea diver giraffe in a prehistoric swamp or a mermaid London sweet shop owner. (Candy Gourlay reminded me that this was her idea when we had the first brainstorming session! And I know Emma Vieceli and Jim Medway both do similar things when they lead comics workshops.)




Here's Chiahui Liao working on the big panel you'll see when you first walk up to the Comics Big-Top of Awesome.



Maddy Rita Faye is working on the monkey logo image here.



And Isa Caruncho is painting a big interior panel.



A back story: Isa's from the Philippines and Candy Gourlay is featuring a Filipino-style fiesta, so Candy and I had a huge fight at the first meeting over who would get to work with Isa. I loved her illustrative work and she was wearing a Kate Beaton comics t-shirt and I claimed her for comics and I'm so glad I won, ha ha. (Apologies, Candy!)



Here's Production Coordinator Jessica Hudsley checking our our robot.



Writer Marcus Sedgwick has been hugely ambitious in organising a whole vampire-themed theatrical production based on his young adult novel, My Swordhand is Singing.



Rehearsals have been going for awhile, and I think it's going to be quite scary, so probably not for the younger children. But should be pretty amazing.