The Chinese American author and illustrator best known for her Pocket Peaches series of comics gave enthusiastic children a basic understanding of comics, its design and storytelling techniques such as panels, gutters or the space between panels, layout and speech bubbles. She explained how there were different bubbles to express different emotions such as fear, love and excitement.
“In a comic, one should first set up a story, create tension and then introduce a twist or surprise element to conclude the story,” said the young illustrator as she patiently helped children with their art work. She pointed out that each panel will make use of sketching, inking and colouring, and provided them with a set of papers to fill in details about the character and the incident of their proposed comic.
The prompts given included their favourite memory, a funny event that happened in their lives or an animal suddenly discovering super powers.
The children used the tips she had given – speech bubbles, expressions, captions – to illustrate their story. Some drew a cat or a character similar to Peaches the bunny, while some tried to create human characters or a birthday party. Each had a unique flavour, which evidently showed that children’s imagination and creativity can bloom given the ideal surroundings.
Taking place from April 23 to May 4 at Expo Centre Sharjah, the 16th edition of SCRF promises an immersive experience under the theme “Dive into Books”. Organised by the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA), this year’s agenda features 133 guests from 70 countries, and 122 Arab and international publishing houses from 22 nations.
For more information on this free-to-attend event, visit
www.scrf.ae
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