Ancient Egypt Smash - comic-writing workshop

This week, I helped Kel Winser with a comic-writing workshop for 17 year-olds, run at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. I've done events like this before, and am generally asked in to talk about being a jobbing writer and the sorts of things that come up when I'm writing comics. I also have original artwork from a strip I wrote (drawn by the amazing John Ross from Doctor Who Adventures), and it helps the kids to see the stages the work goes through before it goes to print.

This time we tried something different and I was more involved. Kel asked me to write a script for the attendees to draw. The idea was that each attendee would draw one or two panels each, telling the story between them. They'd have to work together to agree character designs, setting and so on.

The museum was also keen for me to include aspects of Egyptology (and the workshop included an exercise in drawing objects from life), something about modern Egypt, the practice of archaeology itself and the ancient culture of Egypt - which isn't exactly easy in three pages of six panels each. So here's what I wrote:

ANCIENT EGYPT SMASH!
Script © Simon Guerrier 2012

PAGE ONE (OF THREE) – SIX PANELS

PANEL ONE
Establishing shot: Egypt in the future. A mix of the ancient and the futuristic. Pyramids (not the ones at Giza – something more unusual), but with skyscrapers nearby, and flying cars. Small detail in this: an archaeological dig, with the entrance to an excavation.

CAPTION:
Egypt. 2212 AD.

PANEL TWO
A dark tomb being excavated. Closed doors with hieroglyphics (or your own strange writing) on them. In front of them kneels a figure, a silhouette, holding a torch as she reads. Though we don't know it yet, she's a woman – but we'll meet MAGGIE in the next panel. There are other archaeologists working nearby.

CAPTION:
Where incredible finds are still being made...

MAGGIE:
So it says... Oh.

MAGGIE 2:
“Death to men who enter here...”

PANEL THREE
MAGGIE lifts a torch to investigate what she's found. She's an accomplished archaeologist, but she's NOT River Song or Lara Croft or any other hero you already know. Her clothes are practical but futuristic. She wears glasses.

MAGGIE:
Good job I'm not a man.

MAGGIE 2:
But you lot best stay back...

PANEL FOUR
Same as PANEL TWO, but MAGGIE pushes the doors with her hand and the doors creak open. We can just see inside parts of the two giant ROBOTS inside.

CAPTION:
Creeeeeeeek!

PANEL FIVE
MAGGIE holds the torch up to examine two huge robots, their designs based on Egyptian gods (you pick which ones). ROBOT 1 and ROBOT 2 look brand new. We need to see their faces, and their blank, staring eyes (to make the next panel work).

MAGGIE:
They're amazing. So perfectly preserved!

Page one, panel six
by Ryan

PANEL SIX
Close on the robots' faces as their eyes light up. MAGGIE falls back in horror. The ROBOTS speech bubbles are in a different, more mechanical typeface and the bubbles are more square.

ROBOT 1:
That's real nice of you, puny human.

MAGGIE:
Oh!

PAGE TWO – SIX PANELS

PANEL ONE
ROBOT 1 and ROBOT 2 smash their way through the doors and out of the tomb. The archaeologists run away, but MAGGIE tries to keep up with the robots.

CAPTION:
Crash! Thunk!

ARCHAEOLOGIST:
Eeek!

MAGGIE:
But you're... You're alive.

ROBOT 2:
Well, d'uh. God's don't die.

PANEL TWO
The ROBOTS stand outside the dig, gazing off at the skyscrapers, the flying cars (as PAGE ONE, PANEL ONE). MAGGIE running after them, struggling to keep up.

ROBOT 1:
How long did we sleep?

ROBOT 2:
I'll check the position of stars...

Page two, panel three
by Chantelle

PANEL THREE
ROBOT 1 leaning over to look, in amazement, at the reading on ROBOT 2's wrist. MAGGIE tries to intercede.

ROBOT 1:
Woah! What?!?

ROBOT 2:
Must be a glitch.

MAGGIE:
The doors of your tomb were sealed more than 4,000 years ago.

PANEL FOUR
The robots, shocked, turn on MAGGIE.

ROBOT 2:
The humans tricked us!

MAGGIE:
What? We didn't do anything!

PANEL FIVE
ROBOT 2 gestures at the skyscrapers, the flying cars.

ROBOT 2:
They locked us away – and built a world of their own!

ROBOT 2 2:
So we'll smash it!

PANEL SIX
The ROBOTS take to their air, leaving MAGGIE behind.

MAGGIE:
Wait! Come back!

MAGGIE 2:
What have I done?

PAGE THREE – SIX PANELS

PANEL ONE
The two ROBOTS smash a famous landmark from somewhere round the world. The bigger, the madder, the more recognisable, the better.

CAPTION:
Smash!

ROBOT 2:
Ha ha!

PANEL TWO
The two ROBOTS destroy ANOTHER famous landmark somewhere round the world. It has to be from a different country than the one in PANEL ONE.

ROBOT 1:
Good to stretch after all that time asleep.

CAPTION:
Crunch!

PANEL THREE
The two ROBOTS in the air, one holding on to a warplane, the other smashing into one. Behind them, lots of warplanes attacking.

CAPTION:
The humans try to fight back, but...

ROBOT 1:
Is this the best they can do?

CAPTION:
Clunk! Crunk!

PANEL FOUR
The ROBOTS in the air, the ground below them littered with broken planes and tanks.

ROBOT 1:
Okay. What do we smash next?

PANEL FIVE
From behind the robots as they look down – at a children's playground, with swings and slides, kids playing.

ROBOT 1:
Oh wow!

ROBOT 2:
Perfect.

Page three, panel six
by Kel

PANEL SIX
The giant ROBOTS... on the swings. Small children stare and point and laugh.

ROBOT 1:
This is amazing! Wheee!

ROBOT 2:
Yeah, okay, humans. You can keep your world.

END

Make your own comic drawn by Lee Sullivan

In 2007, I devised a task for a comic-writing workshop aimed at teenagers being run by the V&A's Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. The following four images by amazing comics artist Lee Sullivan were printed out on postcards.

Use the images to tell a story. You decide which order they go in, and add captions and speech bubbles. You can add to the images or create new panels of your own. You don't have to use all (or any) of the panels. Enjoy.

(Please note: you're welcome to try the task yourself or share it with your friends so long as you don't make money from it. The task and scripts are (c) Simon Guerrier 2007, and the artwork (c) Lee Sullivan 2007.)

To prove the idea worked, I wrote two short scripts using the images in different combinations. In discussion with the organisers, I avoided super heroes, violence and explosions, and also tried to tie the images and stories to the age and experience of the kids attending. But the kids were (and you are) not limited by those restrictions.

VERSION ONE

PANEL 1
RED-HAIRED GIRL and BOY IN CAP are on their phones, BLOND BOY is whistling and MONSTER looks at us.

CAPTION:
Just another day waiting for the 57.

CAPTION 2:
With an invisible monster.

MONSTER:
(THINKS): Cor, I’m bored. I’ll use my powers to make that pretty girl see me and fall in love.

PANEL 2
RED-HAIRED GIRL and BLOND BOY looked shocked. BOY IN CAP gazes at MONSTER.

MONSTER:
(THINKS) Drat, missed!

PANEL 3
RED-HAIRED GIRL and BLOND BOY hold hands. BOY IN CAP struggles in the arms of MONSTER.

MONSTER:
(THINKS) She's fallen for the wrong person!

MONSTER 2:
Hmf! I’ll just have to eat this one.

PANEL 4
Bus drives away with RED HAIR LADY and BLOND BOY.

RED-HAIRED GIRL:
Is that guy in the hat… flying?

BLOND BOY:
Help!

[END]

VERSION TWO

PANEL 1
RED-HAIRED GIRL and BLOND BOY hold hands. BOY IN CAP struggles in the arms of MONSTER.

CAPTION:
Waiting for the last bus on Sunday night.

RED-HAIRED GIRL:
It’s been such a great weekend!

MONSTER:
I just want a little kiss goodbye.

PANEL 2
RED-HAIRED GIRL and BOY IN CAP are on their phones, BLOND BOY is whistling and MONSTER looks at us.

RED-HAIRED GIRL:
Yeah, I’m just seeing him off. Be home soon.

MONSTER:
Heh heh. I don’t just want a little kiss.

PANEL 3
RED-HAIRED GIRL and BLOND BOY looked shocked. BOY IN CAP gazes at MONSTER.

BOY IN CAP:
Well how about I stay with you and she takes Blondie home? 

PANEL 4
Bus drives away with RED-HAIRED GIRL and BLOND BOY.

BLOND BOY:
A swap!

BOY IN CAP:
I bet Mum doesn’t even notice.

[END]

AAAGH! Davros's milkshake brings all the monsters to the yard!

My 36th and - for the time being - final episode of AAAGH!, as featured in issue #280 of Doctor Who Adventures. As always, it's drawn by Brian Williamson and edited by Natalie Barnes, who gave kind permission to post it here. You can read all my AAAGH!s.

ETA: This Cult Den interview with me includes brief mention of AAAGH! and how it came about.

AAAGH! and the Martians

A summery AAAGH! from issue #279 of Doctor Who Adventures, and featuring two lots of Martians (sadly no room to squeeze in the Ambassadors... as well). As always, it's written by me, drawn by Brian Williamson and edited by Natalie Barnes - who gave kind permission for me to post it here. You can read all my AAAGH!s. Tomorrow, Davros's milkshake brings all the monsters to the yard.

... of DEATH.

AAAGH! The Big Clonk!

The second part of the AAAGH! story that began last week. This one featured in Doctor Who Adventures #276 and may owe a little to 2010 episode The Big Bang.

As ever, the script is by me, the art by Brian Williamson and the editing by Natalie Barnes and Paul Lang - who gave kind permission for me to post it here. Paul - who came up with AAAGH! in the first place - is leaving Doctor Who Adventures. Thank you for everything.

The AAAGH! of Fang Rock

Something special for AAAGH! in issue #275 of Doctor Who Adventures - the first of a two-part adventure! It owes a smidgen to The Horror of Fang Rock - one of my favourite Doctor Who stories ever. You can learn more about Rutans on the official Doctor Who website.

As always, the script is by me, the art by Brian Williamson and the editing by Natalie Barnes and Paul Lang - who gave kind permission for me to post it here. You can also read all my AAAGH!s. Next time: the conclusion!

Horsing Around with Alan Cumming

A photostory from the Jackie annual '84, featuring a talking horse and Alan Cumming.

AAAGH! and the Toyshop!

AAAGH! from Doctor Who Adventures #273

Another AAAGH!, this time from Doctor Who Adventures #273 and featuring a monster from Rose, the first episode of "new" Doctor Who in 2005. (I still think of the Seventh Doctor as new, so am a little weirded out that next year's 50th anniversary jamboree means that Silver Nemesis is halfway.)

As always, this strip is written by me, drawn by Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes, who gave kind permission to post it here. You can read all my AAAGH!s.

Next time: part one of a two-part AAAGH! Yes! I know! EXCITING.

AAAGH! and the Jubilee

AAAGH! meets Queen Victoria

Madder than Madness on the roof of Buckingham Palace, here's Madames Tinkle, Vastra and Jenny arriving in Bessie to receive a gong from Queen Vic. This one owes a bit to Tooth and Claw and a lot to Faceache.

It appeared in Doctor Who Adventures #272. As ever, it's written by me, drawn by Brian Williamson and editing by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - who also gave kind permission to post it here. You can read all my AAAGH!s.

Next week: Nervil meets the Auton bride!

AAAGH! Steampunk Mrs Tinkle

AAAGH! Steampunk Mrs Tinkle

A new AAAGH!, this one featuring Vastra and Jenny from A Good Man Goes To War and the giant rat from The Talons of Weng-Chiang. It was published in issue #270 of Doctor Who Adventures, which was in shops until yesterday. The script is by me, the art by Brian Williamson and the editing by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - who gave kind permission to post it here. You can read all my AAAGH!s. Steampunk Mrs Tinkle will return in two weeks.

AAAGH! A Silent in the Library

AAAGH! A Silent in the Library

Another AAAGH!, this one from issue #269 of Doctor Who Adventures, which was out in shops until yesterday. It may owe a little to the episode Silence in the Library, only with a different sort of Silence. Don't worry, the references get much more obscure in the coming weeks...

As ever, it's written by me, drawn by Brian Williamson and edited by Natalie Barnes and Paul Lang - who gave permission to post it here. You can also read all my AAAGH!s.

Next time (and in shops at the moment): Steampunk Mrs Tinkle.

AAAGH! The very hungry Master!

AAAGH! from Doctor Who Adventures #267 - the very hungry Master

Another silly AAAGH! from Doctor Who Adventures #267 and inspired by a certain caterpillar and this. As ever, it's written by me, drawn by Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes, who gave kind permission to post it here. You can also read all my AAAGH!s.

Next time: A Silent in the Library!

AAAGH! at the beach!

AAAGH! at the beach

More AAAGH! silliness from Doctor Who Adventures, this time from issue #266 and featuring a Sea Devil, a Marshman and a Haemovore, plus a Pyrovile from James Moran's The Fires of Pompeii. As ever, it's written by me, drawn by Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - who gave kind permission for me to post it here. You can also read all my AAAGH!s.

Next episode: the very hungry Master.

Doctor Who and the Grontlesnurt Horror

Doctor Who and the Grontlesnurt Horror by me

The new issue of Doctor Who Adventures, out today, features this comic strip written by me and illustrated by the amazing John Ross - who's produced every episode of the weekly Doctor Who strip for the mag since it began in 2006.

AAAGH! and Mr Stinkle

Another daft AAAGH!, this one from Doctor Who Adventures #264. As ever, it's written by me with art by Brian Williamson and edited by Natalie Barnes and Paul Lang - who gave kind permission to post it here. You can also read all my AAAGH!s.

AAAGH! will return in a couple of weeks with The Very Hungry Master.

AAAGH! and the alien delegates

AAAGH! meets the alien delegates from The Daleks' Master Plan - a reference to a Doctor Who story from 1965-6 that's largely missing from the archive, so perfect for our 8-12 year-old readers. It featured in Doctor Who Adventures #263, out last week.

The art is by clever Brian Williamson, the editing by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - who also gave kind permission to post it here. You can read all my AAAGH!s.

Next episode: the history of Mr Stinkle.

AAAGH! on the Moon!

The AAAGH! from issue #253 of Doctor Who Adventures will be my last for a few weeks. I'm sure that comes as some relief. But it's thrilling to realise that this silliness has been running now for over a year. One day I might tell the hallowed tale of how AAAGH! came to be. The world is not ready for that yet.

As ever, the script is by me, the art by Brian Williamson and the editing by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - who gave kind permission for me to post it. You can read all my AAAGH!s, and see new ones in Doctor Who Adventures every Thursday.

The sign of 'the penguins'

A fun afternoon in Greenwich, first to be grilled for a forthcoming podcast about some things what I have writ, and then to a special preview of the newly reopened Caird library at the Maritime Museum.

Whereas once the museum's vast wealth of records on the history of ships, pirates, migration and cool space stuff was housed down the road in Kidbrooke, it's now neatly packed into 9 kilometres of shelves at the museum, which I got to poke my nose round. The chief appeal will be to maritime researchers and those tracking family history (and there's a digitisation project going on at the moment).

But for the casual, nerdy passerby there was plenty to excite, if you have the sense and sophistication to be excited by weird old books. There's volume after velum-wrapped volume of old maps, complete with dragons and monsters, and a sailcloth bound edition (1779) of William Buchan's Domestic medicine: or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines with an appendix containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners - this copy as used on the Bounty under Bligh.

Of the greatest excitement to me was a copy of Aurora Australis, the book written and published by the British Antarctic Expedition of 1907 over the winter (April to July) of 1908. It's full of drawings, poems and short accounts of the trip by members of the crew such as "Interview with an emperor" (i.e. an emperor penguin). Dork that I am, I thrilled to see ice-berg hyphenated. But the book, the physical object, is a thing of wonder.

The front matter explains that it was "Printed at the sign of 'the penguins'" - beside a neat, square logo - "by Joyce and Wild. Latitude 77°..32' South, Longitude 166°..12' East Antarctica". One of the librarians helpfully told me that this was one of maybe 100 copies produced (the museum holds two copies). That's the print run of some of the small-press stuff I've worked on or reviewed. And they don't compare.

The cover is hard wood - made from a packing case, as the stamp on the inside clearly shows. But it's the quality of the book that's really impressive: good quality lay-out and editing, printed beautifully on a good stock of paper.

So we get an impression of the kind of man that expedition leader Ernest Shackleton might have been in his need to add a second, "Additional preface" with the following caveat:

"But the reader will understand better the difficulty of producing such a book quite up to the mark when he is told that, owing to the low temperature in the hut, the only way to keep the printing ink in a fit state to use was to have a candle burning under the inking plate; so if some pages are printed more lightly than others it is due to the difficulty of regulating the heat, and consequently the thinning or thickening of the ink. Again the printing office was only six feet by seven and had to accommodate a large sewing machine and bunks for two men, so the lack of room was a disadvantage; but I feel that those who see this book will not be captious critics".

Shackleton would later be a member of Captain Scott's ill-fated expedition, while his amazing, old-skool heroism in getting his crew - every one of them - safely back from the Antarctic is featured in this week's Corpse Talk comic strip by Adam Murphy in issue 3 of the Phoenix comic. The books I've mentioned - and a whole bunch more cool stuff - is available on request at the Caird library - subject to the terms and conditions on the website.

AAAGH! in the air!

An action-packed AAAGH! from issue #251 of Doctor Who Adventures, available until yesterday. It might owe a little to the opening sequence of The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe. Script by me, art by Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes who gave kind permission to post it here. You can also read all my AAAGH!s.

The new issue out today has a splendid AAAGH! by Paul Lang, and also photographs of the Whomobile, Meglos and Quatermass.

AAAGH! visits Doctor Who Adventures

An especially indulgent edition of AAAGH! to celebrate issue #250 of Doctor Who Adventures. Script by me, art by Brian Williamson and edited by Natalie Barnes and Paul Lang - who, as always, gave kind permission for me to post it here.