We hear from experts on how to be creative and funny in your stories. Other top tips: switch off your mobile phone and take up life drawing. Here’s a roundup of our first day at the MCM Comic Con London 2018.

Shades of Vengeance Presents: How To Be Creative

The presentation by Ed Jowett and Leo Cosh on how to get creative is worthy of a media masterclass (and we’ve been to a few). The Shades of Vengeance duo gave useful insight on project paradigm in building games by explaining the discipline and methods taken to storyboard, create, test, edit and deploy a game. A  key advice from these masters of digital games: learn to switch off from the mobile phone or social media to spend time on your own creativity. If you are a high-level creative director in games, advertising, publishing and film-making familiar with theories but just want to get on and do things, this is the masterclass for you. Story of Books will write more on this in an upcoming feature.

Fantastically Funny: Humour in Fantasy and Sci-Fi

A panel of fantasy and sci-fi author explained the mechanics of humour and the strategy of humour in sci-fi and fantasy genres. A good insight on the social construction of humour, constraints within culture and editing, and the application of humour as a distancing mechanism for uncomfortable topics. Daniel Polansky, author, succinctly pointed out that “satire is not ha, ha funny” like a comedy. He should have lectured for an English Literature class. Saves us reading all those theory books on stylistics, rhetorics, mimesis and so on.

Tommy Yune

Tommy Yune really wowed audience at the Comic and Manga Workshop at the Creator Stage. It’s hard not to be inspired to create one’s own manga comic after seeing Yune parting useful tips on comic book publishing, from writing script to organising an efficient Photoshop workflow. He indulged the audience with a demo on how to illustrate a Robotech mecha and Speedracers characters. “Nothing substitutes a life drawing class,” he said. Other tips include recording your fleeting idea, use all available technology – be it Wacom tablet, iPad, scanner or pen drawing. He also urged comic authors to build followings and audience on social media, to increase chance of being published. Yune admitted he’s not on social media himself when Story Of Books asked to follow him. He said: “I’ll never get any work done if I do.”

V&A at the MCM Comic Con

High culture meets popular culture at the MCM Comic Con with the presence of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) as one of the exhibitors. The V&A is at MCM Comic Con to promote its digital games exhibition: “Videogames: Design / Play / Disrupt”.

Story Of Books at MCM Comic Con

• Event: MCM Comic Con
• MCM Comic Con: Start your universe with feelings (3 November 2018)
• MCM Comic Con: Read out your script, learn to draw and find a mentor (1 November 2018)
• MCM Comic Con: Photo Gallery (30 October 2018)
• MCM Comic Con: Outline your story, listen to feedback and be nice on social media (30 October 2018)
• Story Of Books at the MCM Comic Con London (2 June 2018)
• Five Minutes With: Dr Ernesto Priego, Project Lead, Parables of Care (1 June 2018)

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