Students studying the University’s MA Graphic Novel were commissioned by Brighton entertainment and lifestyle magazine BN1 to produce a new comic for their latest edition.
The collaborative piece was printed as a special feature in the Spring 2021 edition of the magazine. The students, who at the time were working in three different countries, had to overcome the challenges of collaborating during lockdown as student Gavin Pollock explains:
“We thrashed out the story in a Friday morning seminar over a couple of hours. Someone said they were convinced their postie was up to something, and we just sort of went with that idea, so it was a sort of "what if the postie was a murderer?", and then "But what if everyone in the street had a dark secret?", then "but then what if....?" etc sort of story jam. Ideally the sort of thing we'd have done down the pub, instead of on webcam between Singapore, Leeds, India, and Cumbria, but it seemed to work.
The artwork was done in a similar way. Comic production is often divided into pencilling, inking, colouring, and lettering, with different artists doing each stage. We each took a page to pencil, which was then pinged off to someone else to ink, and then forwarded again to another artist to colour. As we're five different nationalities and were in three different countries, it ended up being sent all over the place!”
The final comic was produced by: Gavin Pollock, Kit Malone, Nicholas Kok, Raya Konyarska and Srijith Panicker.
Image: Details from final work featured in BN1 magazine