Moose Kid Comics, the free online children’s comic, has released a special festive mini-issue, featuring the work of 28 of the best comic artists working today – hoping the new free digital issue will encourage people to back a great project to bring comics to kids in hospitals.
The 16-page, full-colour special features idiotic elves, tormented Santas, snowball fights and furious food, not to mention yetis, unicorns, spaceships and culinary kittens. In other words, all the Christmas traditions!
Alongside this, Moose Kid Comics have started a fundraising campaign to help get comics into children’s hospitals, hostels, wherever they can help raise a smile. Teaming up with the charity Readathon, Moose Kid Comics hope to raise at least £2,000, which will fund the printing and distribution of Moose Kid issues 1 and 2 to children’s wards around the UK.
“One of the very first reasons we started Moose Kid Comics was to get comics to children in hospital,” says Jamie Smart, the online anthology’s editor, who has been working in British comics as writer, artist and ideas man for over 15 years on titles such as The Dandy, Beano and Phoenix. “It seems the most obvious plan, sharing big, wonderful, colourful comics with children who would really appreciate the entertainment.”
“My co-editor Chris suggested we do a Christmas mini-issue,” Jamie explains. “Around the same time I was wondering how we could set up a fundraiser. The two ideas just merged together, we could share the Christmas special to help promote the fundraiser.
“I approached Readathon, who are an amazing charity putting children’s books into hospitals, and they were excited about the idea of sending out comics too.”
“In this country we’ve almost lost children’s comics from the public consciousness, so this is a good place to start changing that. Sharing comics with children who might be in real need of amusement seems the best use of our craft. I’m hopeful we can reach our target, and perhaps even beat it. The more we can raise, the more good we can do with comics.”
Moose Kid Comics is an annual release, aiming to showcase the talent working in comics today, as well as showing how impressive children’s comics can be. Issues 1 and 2 are both full-colour, 36-pages long and completely free to read or download from the website www.moosekidcomics.com.
“Our Christmas special features a lot of the great names from our regular issues,” Jamie says. “Including Gary Northfield, Rachael Smith, Tom Paterson, Mark Stafford and Jess Bradley to name but a tiny few.
“What I love about putting Moose Kid together is how different the strips are from each other – we have comics teaching you how to bake cookies, we have photo comics, we have spoof adverts and comics about every aspect of Christmas and the festive season you could imagine!”
“We’ll be back to release Issue Three in the summer. But for now, we’re all about Christmas, and trying to do some real good with comics.”
• The Moose Kid Comics 2015 Christmas Special is free to read on the website: www.moosekidcomics.com
• Back the Moose Kid Comics fundraising campaign here
The full list of comic creators involved in the Moose Kid Comics special Christmas issue:
Tom Plant, Andreas Schuster, Jess Bradley, Mark Stafford, Gary Northfield, Aaron Alexovich, James Downing, Hamish Steele, Chris Garbutt, Dan Gaynor, Rick Eades, Viviane Schwarz, Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, Stephen Waller, Alan Ryan, Rachael Smith, Matt Baxter, Andrew Waugh, Joe List, Tom Paterson, Rikke Asbjorn, Jonathan Edwards, Feltmistress, Alexander Matthews, Rianne Rowlands, James Lawrence, Craig Knowles, Jamie Smart
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
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