The Super Six

By John Freeman on 29 June 2007

Hard on the heels of 2D, the Northern Ireland Comics Festival in April, comes another Northern Ireland comics project, The Super Six, published by OFMDFMNI:CYPU.

Okay, so it doesn’t quite trip off the tongue like IPC or DCT and I doubt that many here actually know what it stands for (but then how many actually know what the D C of D C Thomson stands for without going and looking it up?). OFMDFMNI:CYPU stands for (taking a deep breath) the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland: Children and Young People’s Unit.

CYPU have created an education comic to be distributed free to all Northern Ireland’s primary school children. The Super Six are six child superheroes embodying the six goals of the CYPU Children’s Strategy. The twenty page colour comic, drawn Beano style, may set out to teach children but contains enough visual humour to keep the teacher or parent amused as well. For those outside the Province the entire comic, along with its accompanying Teacher’s Guide, are available as PDF downloads with an audio version of the comic, read by professional storyteller Liz Weir, available as MP3 files.

More info at: www.allchildrenni.com/index/the-super-six.htm

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as 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.