Comic Boom - Comics in Education with World Book Day 2024 illustrator Vivian Truong and BBC Teach

0:06

Hello and welcome to comic. The comics and education podcast. If you're interested in hearing more about the crossover between comics and education, then this is the podcast for you. My name is Lucy and each week I'll be joined by a fellow educator and academic librarian or a creator of comics to discuss their journey into comics and provide some inspiration to influence your practice and hopefully shine some light on some titles you can bring into your libraries, your classrooms, and your bookshelves at home too. This week I'm joined by Vivian truong vivian studied computer animation arts at Bournemouth university, she's a self-taught artist and natural storyteller and an avid lover of cartoons and comics. Perfect for us. Her work focuses on finding the humor in everyday situations and exploring fantastical new worlds. Our first graphic novel city of dragons. The awakening storm is listed as a best graphic novel of 2021 by ALA. And there's a worldwide hit among reviewers. We talk about that in this episode. And she's also the artist behind cooking with monsters, a graphic novel cookbook. Vivian is also the official illustrated this year of world book day which is why she is joining me for our world book day special. She will be a contributor to world book day 2024 live lesson, which is hosted by BBC teach on Thursday, the 7th of March. At 11:00 AM. You can tune in with your classes, with your book groups on world book day. Vivian will be joining presenters, Maddy Moate and Joe Tasker in the live lesson. Along with some other authors and creators linked with world book day this year To create a live lessons, pop-up library and delve into fiction and nonfiction explore different genres together. Vivian's very excited about it. We took through that in this episode. So more details as you listen in. Here's what Vivian had to say.

Lucy SB: 1:57

Hello Vivian, welcome to Comic Boom

Vivian: 1:59

hi! Thank you for having me.

Lucy SB: 2:01

Thank you so much for coming on to our World Book Day special episode. Very exciting. I always start the podcast by asking guests to tell us a little bit about their journey, as a comics reader, first of all. where did your love of comics start for you?

Vivian: 2:18

Right, so, I mean, I've always loved reading as a kid. I think my first introduction to comics was actually finding, like, a Beano annual we had. I don't know who it belonged to. I want to say it was maybe my brother's, but, yeah, I used to, like, when I was, like, maybe drying my hair or something like that, I used to pick up the Beano annual and just read that or, like, uh, Hagar the Horrible? Horrid? Hey, you got a horror? Hey, you got a horrible? I can't remember. Um, so that was kind of my, yeah, introduction to comics. I started to get more into them when I discovered manga at like, W. H. Smith when I was 11 years old.

Lucy SB: 2:56

You discovered manga in WH Smith. That seems crazy to me.

Vivian: 3:00

I, I couldn't believe it. Um, around that time, was the first time I kind of, I mean, I've always watched anime, but I didn't know it was anime until like, Yeah, maybe when I was 10 when I watched Naruto for the first time. So when I, found, uh, Tokyo Mew Mew at WH Smith, I was like, oh my gosh, what is this? Like, this Japanese comic, and it was, it's all backwards. Um, yeah, I got really into it from there. Yeah, only when I was maybe, 17 years old was when I started to actually transition to, like, um, Western, like, indie comics, and that's when I really, I got into comic books,

Lucy SB: 3:36

And were you, at that time when you were first started to read comics, were you already into kind of drawing and illustration or, or was that something that grew through your reading?

Vivian: 3:45

Yeah, no, I've actually always been into drawing, pretty much ever since I could pick up a pencil, um, I've loved drawing. Because my parents, worked all the time, I would always just kind of sit in front of the TV and watch cartoons and draw at the same time. I would maybe like, draw from like, whatever I saw on the TV, so like, my, yeah, my love of, drawing kind of grew from there, and comics was just kind of like, uh, uh, an easy way for me to make up stories, with my own characters, without having like, a whole TV production sort of thing.

Lucy SB: 4:17

And so, when you first came into contact comics, was it the images that were drawing you in? Is it the story? Is it the, the kind of magic of both being combined, do you think?

Vivian: 4:25

I think definitely the story for me, I've always loved, reading and telling stories, because I loved drawing too, it kind of helped me combine, both of my love of, like, storytelling and drawing, that's why, yeah, that's why I kind of love comics so much, Yeah, so I think for me, like, as an artist, uh, uh, my number one priority has always been, storytelling. And I just find that comics is just like a, uh, a great way for me to, yeah, tell stories without, having to, actually, like, writing the words out, you know.

Lucy SB: 5:00

You've told us a few of the titles that you kind of enjoyed when you were younger. What kind of things are you particularly enjoying reading now? Feel free to give some shout

Vivian: 5:09

I generally, I love reading like, fantasy books, I just, I actually just finished reading, if you know, Avatar The Last Airbender, I just Avatar Kyoshi, those two books, uh, but, uh, I'm kind of giving a break from fantasy right now and I'm reading Yellow Face,

Lucy SB: 5:24

Oh yeah, yeah. I've seen, I've, I've seen a lot of, I think I've listened to a podcast about that and I've seen that it's much talked about.

Vivian: 5:30

yeah, it's kind of a hit right now, honestly, like, I'm only kind of In the beginning, but just every page, I'm just like, I've got my jaw dropped, like, oh my god, the audacity

Lucy SB: 5:39

Yeah.

Vivian: 5:39

protagonist.

Lucy SB: 5:40

Yeah.

Vivian: 5:42

no, I love it, yeah.

Lucy SB: 5:46

So this is a World Book Day special, as I've said, and, you're the official illustrator for World Book Day 2024. How did that, how did that come about?

Vivian: 5:58

so, it was last year, I just I just randomly found an email in my inbox from the organizers, asking me if I'd be interested in becoming, like, the official illustrator. I mean, I had no idea what that meant at first, but I had to kind of, stop myself from internally screaming, I had to, like, compose myself before I just said yes, to just really think about, like, what that meant. Um, Yeah, I mean, I tried to give myself maybe like an hour before

Lucy SB: 6:25

A few deep breaths.

Vivian: 6:26

yeah, because I, I loved World Book Day, as a kid, that really kind of helped me get into reading too, so, to be part of something that was kind of really fundamental for me as, like, a kid, that was just like a really, exciting opportunity that kind of just came my way, so, after they contacted me and I said yes, we kind of started drafting some ideas. We talked about, what has worked in the past, and like maybe what hasn't, and kind of what Direction they were looking for this time. So, I think my style from last year, my style was quite like comic style. So they were kind of looking for, like, more, energy this time. And, trying to think about how we could appeal to all age ranges, I think because in the past maybe, um, for World Book Day, the graphics, they appeal more for that younger audiences, so trying to see if we could, like, do our best to hit, like, a wider age range, because

Lucy SB: 7:20

They've tried to do that with the books as well, haven't they? There's some, some options there which are for more the, the kind of, secondary age reader increasingly.

Vivian: 7:28

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because I think when you start hitting like maybe preteen or like just teenager years, like that's when, um, everyone starts to kind of fall off reading. So I thought maybe it'd be a good idea to like make characters of like a, like a wider range so that they could use like different characters, but like different types of promotion. yeah, so the character, the idea that we came up with was to have Six characters relate back to the six reading principles

Lucy SB: 7:55

that's a cool, that's a cool

Vivian: 7:57

Yeah. So it's kind of like, they're kind of like the heroes.

Lucy SB: 7:59

so these characters are used to kind of promote World Book Day on the different kind of publicity material and build the themes that they really want to bring out of, World Book Day this year.

Vivian: 8:10

Yeah, exactly. And um, I, it was really important for me to also represent as many different, like, genders and races as much as possible. Just like have a really diverse cast.

Lucy SB: 8:21

now, the books are starting to appear in the shops just over the last week or so. And you can see it on the stands for the books and all things like that. It's brilliant.

Vivian: 8:30

Yeah, I, I just saw it in person, for the first time, like, yesterday. Well, I mean, I've seen the McDonald's promotions, which is really cool, too. but yeah, I just saw the stands yesterday, and I was just so, I was just really pleased at how it turned out, like, making sure, like, the colours were vibrant enough, and yeah.

Lucy SB: 8:49

Yeah, it's really cool. Actually, that's one thing that really stands out, I think, in your work is the colours. Like, it's just so, it is so vibrant and, feast for the eyes.

Vivian: 8:58

Thank you. I have my brother to thank for that. When I, when I started, secondary school and taking like kind of art classes, I didn't really know how to like paint and color, but my brother, he sort of taught me the different things about like, like tones and like hues. And that kind of really got me started early on really thinking about color theory. so yes, I really love making light. Vibrant characters, making sure like each colour like they represent, like, means something.

Lucy SB: 9:27

That's really cool. I'm going to talk to you a little bit more about your process later on, because I'm massively geeky and fascinated by things like that. I know for, as part of World Book Day, work, you're also involved in the World Book Day 2024 live lesson with BBC Teach. Everyone can access that on World Book Day through the internet, can't they? Is the content top secret or can you share a little bit about what people can expect if they tune in with their classes, with their reading clubs, in their libraries and so on? What can they expect?

Vivian: 9:57

I'm not sure how much I can reveal, but I'll be joining, uh, CBBC presenters, Maddie Moat and Joe Tasker, uh, along with World Book Day authors, Alex Falase-Koya and Dr. Sheila Kanani. we'll be discussing, book recommendations. I myself will be, drawing a lot of the time. So yeah, I think we can expect, expect a really kind of, chilled out, workshop, I guess.

Lucy SB: 10:20

That sounds brilliant. how are you feeling about it? Are you nervous about it or do you just take that kind of thing in your stride?

Vivian: 10:25

Oh, I'm, I'm really nervous. I, I don't know, for me, like, public speaking is something I can just about do, but as soon as you, like, Put a camera in front of me or like if I had to record myself That's when everything kind of goes out the window and I'm like, ah So, I don't know I'll see how it goes maybe I'll be okay or maybe I'll just like be panicking on the spot Like hopefully you don't see me start shaking while I'm on camera Oh

Lucy SB: 10:56

absorbed into what you're doing and you'll be fine. feel bad for asking that now. I made you come. I know that World Book Day has the theme of Read Your Way for this year. and I just wondered kind of what that means to you what does reading your way look like?

Vivian: 11:14

Yeah, so, I recently, discovered that I had ADHD and I think that's what really affected my reading. Um, journey to, uh, as a kid, because I used to really love reading but, at a certain point in my life, like maybe when I was a pre teen, teenager, started to get more and more difficult for me to concentrate on reading. like, I would read maybe like, a couple of sentences and zone out and then realize I've done that and I have to go back and reread what I've read and it will just be like rinse and repeat and I'd be reading like the same thing over and over again because I would be zoning out each time and it wasn't necessarily because the writing was bad or anything like that. It was just literally my issue. And, because I used to get like really frustrated. that it would be taking me so long to read something that I eventually kind of gave up reading. And that's how, um, comics coming into my life, uh, really played a large role in helping me get back into reading. so for like, for reading my way, I always find that having a good mix of like, comics. And regular,, prose books, really helps me to, like, balance, out my, kind of, attention span issues. If I felt like I was struggling to read again, I'd maybe go back into a comic and just kind of help, sort of, like, train my brain, to read again and then I'd be able to read, like, other books outside of comics. also, I don't really have a lot of time to just sit and read. So, for me, reading would be, like, reading, for maybe, like, half an hour in the morning or before I go to bed. Or where, or maybe just when I'm just brushing my teeth. So I'd just be, like, finding little ways where I could read, even if it was only for, like, ten minutes. It's a day. I always read when I, while I'm doing different things to help my attention span, um, sometimes I'd be reading, uh, as I like would dry my hair or I'd be like holding a, like my book down with my feet or something like that on the bed and I'll just said like, you know, um, if you, if you see wet marks And a book from me that I, like, lent you. I'm really sorry, it's just my hair.

Lucy SB: 13:24

I was gonna say that sometimes the school experience of reading is quite controlled in terms of like, this is how we do it, this is when we do it. Did you find reading in school restrictive in a sense because of that?

Vivian: 13:35

a little bit. I mean, it, it kind of helped, but also it did feel a bit restrictive. Like, um, we were kind of expected to finish a book within maybe a week or two, something like that. Cause we'd always have to write reviews. And, um, if you were writing a review about the same book every week, the teacher would question you, like, are you really reading or not? and then, yeah, and then you would end up having to just kind of give up on the book that you were reading, uh, and just make up a review because you hadn't really finished it. And it kind of felt like, it didn't really feel fair that I was like rushed to finish a book, even though sometimes you just kind of go through periods where you don't feel like reading. yeah, so yeah, that it did. feel like that sometimes. But it did kind of help that they did encourage reading a lot, in my school at least.

Lucy SB: 14:21

I mean, you obviously come through the education system with a really strong love of story and things like that. I'd really love to know your journey to becoming an illustrator. I think, so quite a lot of the listeners of the podcast are teachers, librarians, people working with children. And I just think it's really useful to kind of have an oversight of that kind of career journey and all the different ways it can go because they might, I'm sure, have budding illustrators of the future in their classes, in their libraries at the moment. So it's just really interesting to hear.

Vivian: 14:50

I think for me, like, as I said, like, storytelling is the most, was the most important thing for me in my art. to be an illustrator, it really depend on what you, find is like the most valuable thing for you when you're creating. Uh, like I have friends who, don't mind just working for a studio and helping kind of envision an idea in a sense, they don't need their name on like the thing. like the artwork and like the characters they create, they're happy to be kind of part of like a bigger vision. whereas for me, like I, maybe it's just cause I have a big ego or something like that. I need something that's like my own, like, yeah. So if someone saw a drawing to be like, Oh yeah, that's, that's like a Vivian creation. But yeah, so it just really depends on why do you love? Creating art, like, why do you like illustrating? Do you, do you wanna tell stories or do you just wanna have, beautiful artworks that people could like stop and stare at? It's not something like you need to find out immediately, but just while you're creating, you can really kind of discover those parts about yourself. and like, you know, this, the most important thing is like having fun, right? Like when you are. Having fun, while you are drawing, you can, it, it can really shine out in your artworks.

Lucy SB: 16:08

interesting. Are there times for you when it isn't fun? Are there times when you're like, I can't get this right and it's, you need to walk away for a while?

Vivian: 16:16

Yeah. I think with comics, it can be kind of, um, tiring sometimes that you're just kind of drawing like shot by shot and. I mean obviously it helps move the story along, but it's maybe it's not the most fun thing to draw like the other day I had to draw loads of boats Not really like my kind of thing, but you know, I needed to kind of at least show that overview I couldn't just like have the characters talk about boats and there are no boats around So, yeah, there are there are hard days like that and frequently I have I have trouble drawing hands, and my friends consistently point out that I've drawn a hand the wrong way round, and I'm like, okay, again with this. So there are some difficult days, yeah.

Lucy SB: 17:06

and have you got any tips for people getting through those difficult days if they're struggling with their own projects?

Vivian: 17:12

Yeah, so if you are able to, I think it helps to maybe Try something different, like maybe for a little bit, like, I mean, say you're drawing a comic and you're really struggling to draw one scene, it might help to just move on to something else that you can go, and then go back to that scene later on with a, like a fresher mind. or otherwise, you know, if you, if you really need to get something done, I think it does help to,, go out for a bit, like, take walks, just have a break, or maybe read something, or, yeah, or like, or I guess something like that will really, like, fascinate you, about whatever the subject that you're drawing is. like, I think for me, like, uh, I used to always really struggle with, digital painting. It was very different from like like traditional like acrylic painting for example, which is kind of what I grew up with and because I found it so frustrating I didn't want to try but after I started watching Uh, like videos of people actually using, digital paints, like really seeing what their process was like, yeah, that's what got me really interested in it, and so kind of like, like trick yourself into being like passionate about it as well, I guess.

Lucy SB: 18:26

I love that. That's a great tip. So, actually, you have been mentioned on the podcast before, at the end of the episode, and we'll get you to do one as well, but end of every episode, guests, give us a book to add to our To be Read piles, and the book that Mike Sterling from Beano, recommended in his episode was Cooking with Monsters, can you tell listeners who maybe haven't had a chance to pick it up yet a little bit more about that book?

Vivian: 18:50

Yes, so Cooking with Monsters is about a group of teenagers who attend this school that teaches them how to fight monsters and then cook them afterwards. So, yeah, it's a fantasy, teen action story, there's like some drama in there, the themes are a lot about, like, um, hero worship, and also just, uh, cultural identity, so, Jordan Alsaqa, the writer, and I, uh, we're both POCs, Jordan is half Palestinian. So, for us, it was really important to kind of touch upon, like, that subject of how food is related to your identity, right? So, um, Yeah, so a lot of the characters, yeah, so whatever their favourite foods were, it really kind of linked back to, like, who they were. And it was about the main character sort of struggling to find herself and really accept, like, where she came from and who she was. so yeah, it was really important for us to kind of really explore those aspects.

Lucy SB: 19:51

I love finding out about when and, and actually last, in the last season of Comic Boom, I had a lot of creative duos come on together. And every single one of the pairs of illustrators, writers or co-writers worked in a different way together. And it's really fascinating to me because in comics, the, image and the words. Work together, so is so important how they go together. I find it fascinating that it's two different people kind of working on those. so how did that partnership with Jordan work, How, how do you come together on that and is it developing the project together? I'm just fascinated to know.

Vivian: 20:25

In the beginning of Cooking with Monsters, I think most of the ideas were Jordan's ideas and I just kind of helped, design the characters and maybe if there were, if he had maybe some general ideas of what maybe like a character looked like or bring forth like a range for him so we can really see like, oh, this is what we, like, what, this is what I envisioned, like, this is kind of a match of what you thought, maybe he maybe had no idea and, you like then he kind of starts to see it himself. in bringing a book to life, what would happen is that Jordan would write an outline first and, uh, we, um, like me and the editors will, discuss like how we feel about like maybe pacing or like just kind of the overarching story, character arcs too, and then maybe he would like go back and rewrite an outline or maybe he have the go ahead to start writing the script out. after writing the script out, then yeah, then usually, once everything's okay, then I would like be able to start, drawing everything that he's kind of planned out. I think with Jordan, he's very much like comic focused, so he kind of knows exactly how like a page will look like. So I kind of already have, A good idea like what's gonna happen. It's very different from City of Dragons for me because City of Dragons I think it's a little bit more I have a bit more say in the writing like there are times where I would maybe rewrite like a few lines just to either shorten the dialogue or just maybe change around like the the panels like in the page. mean Jamal is fantastic I think he he visions it a little bit more Like a movie I would say, so sometimes I had to kind of Make it feel a bit more like a comic, at least make it more readable in a comic maybe I might be dabbling too much, but like I would have a bit more drafting with City of Dragons, compared to like, with Cooking with Monsters where I can just kind of follow the script to a plan, with City of Dragons I have a bit more free reign to kind of put in my own voice in. I I think I don't know if I'm doing too much I'm really sorry Jamal if I'm like overstepping But yeah with City of Dragons I have a bit more free reign to add in my own voice. Yeah, but I mean Both collaborators are, like, really fantastic. Jamal, he is really great to work with. I'm really, uh, glad that he does let me input, like, my, uh, own visions in and he's not too precious about me maybe changing some, like, pages or some dialogue around. Especially with, the character Ramesh. Because he's British, I try to make him as British as possible. That I can get away with, but sometimes, like, I'll add in something and even the editors don't even know what it means and I'm like, okay, I need to, like,

Lucy SB: 23:04

heh. Heh heh heh love it Um, and those books, City of Dragons been very popular. There's two in the series now. Are there plans for more? Is that gonna be an ongoing, kind of long running series?

Vivian: 23:16

Oh yes, absolutely. Um, I am working on book three right now, and be pleased to hear that Jamal is writing book four. we are hoping that there will be more. Yeah, we, I mean, I think our big inspiration for City of Dragons was the Amulet series, so we're hoping it could be just as long as Amulet.

Lucy SB: 23:37

book nine on the horizon. Heh heh heh. Brilliant, I love it.

Vivian: 23:42

Yeah, there's a lot to explore, so.

Lucy SB: 23:44

Oh, that's excellent. I've been really enjoying reading it.

Vivian: 23:46

Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad.

Lucy SB: 23:49

You've done some work in the gaming industry, am I right in that what's your involvement been in computer games? feel Like I'm old when I say computer games. It makes me sound old. I am old. that's the

Vivian: 23:59

it's all good. It's all good. I think I was born in the right era of

Lucy SB: 24:04

Tell me about computer games.

Vivian: 24:07

Yeah, so, uh, yeah, I mean, it's no secret I'm a massive gamer. My love of games came from Pokemon, from the Game Boy. So I think I've loved games ever since then. And my favorite kind of games are the ones that focus more on storytelling. Like my, literally my favourite game series is um, called Ace Attorney. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's basically about playing a lawyer. And the game is very heavily involved being in court. And you're kind of discovering the truth about each case. It's fantastic.

Lucy SB: 24:47

I would Like that. This is this is speaking to me. So I have my family, my children, my husband, all into gaming a lot and I am. It's not that I can't do it. I'm sure if I dedicated myself. and put enough effort in I would be able to do it. But I don't. and then I am so bad, I can't even work out how to walk around, And I just give up really easily. But I know that I would like it if I invested some time.

Vivian: 25:11

Oh my god, I mean, I would, like, completely, completely, recommend. Ace Attorney, like the, like the first trilogy. That's always on sale. There are some game aspects to it, but it is mostly a visual novel, which essentially just means that you're reading the whole time. the only kind of times where you have to play, it is just when you're presenting evidence or you have to look for clues, things like that. But, like, anyone could play it.

Lucy SB: 25:37

I, think I could cope with that. I could cope with

Vivian: 25:38

Oh my god, no, yeah, please. This is so good.

Lucy SB: 25:46

So in terms of gaming and storytelling, because I think if people aren't, don't play computer games. Oh, There I am sounding old again. If they don't play on their, get their Mega Drives out. Um, but they don't know about storytelling in games. and I wonder if you, if you feel it draws really on the same set of skills between kind of books and gaming.

Vivian: 26:10

yeah, absolutely. I think, like These days, there are a lot of games now that feel more like films. Like, if you've ever heard of a game called The Last of Us, that was, I mean that was

Lucy SB: 26:23

I, uh, my husband plays The Last of Us and I've watched, the TV series. It's amazing.

Vivian: 26:28

exactly. I mean, I haven't even played or watched, I'll have to admit, but, but I have heard good things and that's, um, games have become more and more like that. there was a, there was a recently a really big game, one game of the year called, Baldur's Gate 3. So with that game, it's like based off of Dungeons and Dragons. And in that game, they hired. Over 200 actors to, do motion capture so that they would actually, really make the game come alive with each character because it was actually an actor behind each character and with the writing, these characters, they felt so real, and to the point where like Even the actors most of them weren't gamers, none of them had ever really played any games before, but they even, like, tried to pick up the game themselves and it was actually, like, not that bad of a learning curve for them. Because just the game felt so much like just being part of a story rather than just, a kind of action sort of thing, it really felt like you were, you were roleplaying as, like, these characters So I think, gaming these days, storytelling has become, like, a big, selling point now, and it kind of, brings the storytelling alive, you know, you become a bit more, active in the story rather than, like passively reading,

Lucy SB: 27:44

Yeah. And the outcome's not necessarily predetermined which is cool as well.

Vivian: 27:49

Yeah, yeah. Especially with this game, it's like, it's very much like, your actions determine the consequences.

Lucy SB: 27:56

That is very cool. I feel like I'm gonna, I feel like I'm gonna investigate Ace Attorney. I feel like this could be my moment. This could be my moment. I really wanted to play Zelda, but I think Zelda was a bit beyond my skill level, um, as a starting point.

Vivian: 28:08

Oh my god, no, Ace Attorney, I'll take any opportunity to recommend, to promote Ace Attorney to anyone. I love it. I love it so much.

28:19

Vivian. I've got to ask you now. I know. World Book Day is not just about the dressing up. It is about celebrating, reading about getting children excited. building up their knowledge of all the different ways that they can read. Giving them some ownership over their reading experiences. However, I love a bit of dressing up. Um, I can't resist asking you. What would you dress up as if you could dress up as anything? This world work day.

Vivian: 28:42

I've been thinking about this so much. I really can't decide. Um, mean, if I was to be completely like, gratuitous, I would love to, dress up as, Maybe, Hannah from Cooking With Monsters, that's in, like, my book. which is cause the costumes I designed, they're such a pain to draw. I would love to actually have it, And have our giant spatula. I would love that. So whoever's listening, if you can, like, make me a costume, that'd be great. who would you dress up as?

Lucy SB: 29:11

oh Oh, I wasn't prepared for that question to come back to me. I don't know. I tell you what, I was, I was trying to convince, My son to just, I've literally just read this, uh, manga called Superman vs. Meshi. and it's on the Excelsior Awards. A short list, this year for, sort of, primary age, and because obviously he can fly wherever he wants super fast, at lunchtime, he flies to Japan every day, and goes and gets Japanese food, and it's just all about what he eats for his lunch, and so I was trying to convince my son to dress up as, sort of, Superman with, like, noodles, like, with loads of Japanese food. but he wasn't, he wasn't into that idea. Um, but so maybe I'll do that. I'll be super, I'll be superman with some um,

Vivian: 29:53

some noodles. Just an excuse to eat ramen. That's a good one. I'd never heard of that. When you said meshi at first, I thought, I was thinking, is it the footballer? But now I was like, oh yeah, Japanese meshi. Like food, yeah.

Lucy SB: 30:07

Yeah, yeah. It's really funny. It's such a good, I just loved reading it. And it's, yeah, it actually made me so hungry. It's just loads of description about all the different food that he's eating on his lunchtimes, lunch It's a very funny, quirky book. I liked it. So, at the end of each episode, we usually have some tips for teachers, but I thought we could make them a little bit World Book Day themed this time. So, I wondered if you've got any, tips or ideas for bringing comics into World Book Day celebrations.

Vivian: 30:39

Yeah, so a workshop I like to do was, Um, have kids make their own comics. So that'd be like a really fun way to celebrate World Book Day, is if you give them a prompt. Oh, I mean, they don't have to follow the prompt. And they can draw like a four panel comic,, it's so fun to see the ideas that kids come up with, like, they are just natural storytellers in their own way. I, so I did this when I was in, Singapore teaching arts, and I would just kind of give them an example of like a, a four panel comic that I'd made, and they can kind of follow that structure if they'd like, or if they were feeling creative, um, they could, you know, do more or less. But yeah, that would be a, I think that would be like a really fun way to show how, you know, comics are a different form of storytelling. and you know, and it's really fun when they can share their comics with each other. Uh, you know, it is all parts of like reading and kind of learning how to, digest like a story and comics too. I think that would be a really fun way like celebrate World Book Day. Yeah.

Lucy SB: 31:45

quite easily achievable and something you can kind of build in, and be quite flexible around. I know quite often schools are doing kind of carousels of activity where people do different things and then move around different classrooms and things. So that would be a great one to build in.

Vivian: 31:59

Yeah, I mean, honestly, you get the funniest stories.

Lucy SB: 32:02

Yeah, I bet. So I'm really interested to find out a little bit about your time teaching in Singapore. Did you do a lot of comics based work? Was it quite varied? And yeah, any other workshop ideas I'm sure teachers would love to hear.

Vivian: 32:16

Yeah, so, so when I was there I was invited to an international school, um, because the, uh, the kids had read City of Dragons, so they were kind of Like fans already, and they wanted to learn about how to make comics. Uh, so I did focus a lot on how do you go about like writing your own comic and what's like really important like something I always teach when like you like starting out making a comic is that you really need to think about the What's gonna happen in. each panel And the dialogue, if there is dialogue, or if there's like, text. Because I found that, in my early days of creating comics, I would always just draw the pictures first. And not realize that I've left no room for the text, and I always have to like, squeeze it in somewhere,

Lucy SB: 33:02

That is, that's what I do when I try and do comics.

Vivian: 33:05

You know, think about that, like, I

Lucy SB: 33:07

just started doing silent comics because I can't cope.

Vivian: 33:11

I struggled with that a lot and so I realized put down the text first and then draw, it makes the process so much easier and then that way you don't like make random speech bubbles, put in like weird awkward places. Like maybe it is. Like ends up pointing to someone's butt or something like that because you didn't plan. It's actually really important to plan, so I always try to, like, make sure the kids, like, they at least write out what they want to happen in each panel first, Yeah, I mean, there are some kids who still just go ahead and draw first, which is fine. Um, you just kind of explore what works for you, but that's like one of the tips that I always give. The, the stories I read, uh, when I was in Singapore, it was just, it was just so, like, so weird, but so funny. the one that always stuck out to me was this girl who drew a story about, I think someone ate a lot of, frogs or something like that, and then they went to the toilet, and, you know, the frogs came out of their rear end, and then the frogs, like, went into the sewers, and there was, like, too many frogs in the sewers or something. It was just really weird. But, yeah, but it's funny, it worked. It had, yeah, there was a punchline. There was a setup and I, it completely worked as a story, so it was great.

Lucy SB: 34:30

That was brilliant. Well, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast today. The final thing I ask us to do is to recommend a book to listeners. So if we were to add one comic or book about comics to our To Be Read piles tomorrow, what would you recommend that we read?

Vivian: 34:49

I think the most recent book that I read that I really loved was a book called Welcome to St. Hell by Lewis Hancocks. It's a graphic memoir, about the author who, it was his days, as a teenager And, him discovering that he was trans, but it's so, like, lighthearted and really funny. It's perfect for, like, British readers, I think. I find, it has that kind of northern humour in it. Yeah, I highly, highly recommend that book

Lucy SB: 35:16

That sounds brilliant. I haven't heard that of that at all. So I'm definitely gonna look that up. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast today. It's been brilliant to have you I've loved hearing, all about your experiences and your journey in comics. So thank you so much for coming on.

Vivian: 35:29

Thank you for having me. It's been so fun.

Lucy SB: 35:31

Day. I'm sure lots of listeners will be tuning in with their classes.

Vivian: 35:36

Thank you very much.

35:39

Thanks so much to Vivian for joining me on this world book day special episode. And thanks also to BBC teach for supporting the podcast. It's been wonderful to collaborate on another episode with you. Just to recap the World Book Day live lesson with BBC teach will be on Thursday, the 7th of March, which is world book day at 11:00 AM. It's a 30 minute session online that we had available to watch via BBC teach. And also on the CBBC channel, there'll be a link in the show notes to that. They also ahead of time, really wants to hear about your favorite books. So you can email your classes, book recommendations, to live dot lessons@bbc.co.uk with world book day as the heading for a chance of a live shout-out for your school on the live session. I've already harped on about my recommendation for this week. I think I'll leave it at that. It links beautifully to Vivian's book, cooking with monsters. Superman versus meshi. I heard about it last week through my chat with Paul and, From there, I've discovered a whole sub genre of comics, gourmet mango that Paul introduced me to, and also started watching some anime on this theme. There's a series on Netflix that Paul recommended to me, delicious in dungeon. Which is, an adaptation of a manga series. Uh, gourmet manga series about certainly hooked is hilarious. It was bizarre. I love it. So I just thought I'd give a shout out to delicious and dungeon as well. If you would like to support the podcast as usual you can do. So by logging on to kofi.com forward slash Lucy SB K O hyphen F i.com. Forward slash Lucy SB. By leaving a review on whichever platform you listen to the podcast and by sharing with your colleagues and networks is always really appreciated. That's it for this week. My name is Lucy Starbuck, Bradley producer, and host of comic boom. Thanks for listening.