We take a sneaky preview peek at an awesome new Comic and comic workshop project coming from the fabulous Art Heroes!

The awesome team got in touch to let us know that today, 22nd October, is the launch day for "Endangered & More Strange Stories", a full colour, all-ages comics anthology. 

Written by Daniel Clifford, illustrated by Lee Robinson with colour assists from Shaun Balbirnie and edited by Mark E. Johnson, "Endangered & More Strange Stories" features a time travelling vet, an outlaw cowboy and a group of Newcastle kids who ought to know better than to tangle with monsters...

“We've tried to represent the young readers we meet through our workshops by having a diverse range of stories and characters,” said Daniel. “This comic features stories with a wider appeal than superheroes - time travel, animals, a western and a scary story - and the characters are diverse to represent the young people we meet. There are thousands of young people looking for stories that represent people like them - that's our aim with Endangered & More Strange Stories.”

Art Heroes don't just produce awesome comics - Endangered & More Strange Stories also includes material culled from Art Heroes workshops designed to encourage kids to pick up a pen or pencil. As we've often found in chats with comics-ey folk we get to talk to through the blog, there's no better way to engage kids with creativity and storytelling than letting them loose creating their own comics, and that's something Art Heroes are extremely passionate about. 

“Endangered is the accumulation of years of hard work, late nights scribbling away and always thriving to be a better artist,” Lee commented. “I can say that it's the first time where I've felt I haven't left anything behind, and I'm immensely proud to put it in people's hands. Putting it together has been a great experience, and I truly hope that this is reflected with the pages.”

Endangered & More Strange Stories is Lee and Daniel's third major collaboration. The team have had their work published by the acclaimed British kids' anthology The Phoenix Comic and have just released a collected edition of their coming-of-age superhero comic, Halcyon & Tenderfoot.

Offering 36 full-colour pages for just £3.50, Endangered & More Strange Stories is available now from ArtHeroes.co.uk and will be on sale in select retailers soon. Art Heroes is also holding a special launch event for the comic at Newcastle City Library on Saturday October 25th. 

Lee and Daniel will be on-hand to hold a free kids' workshop on time travel and scary comics as well as sign and sketch in copies of the anthology. 

Art Heroes will also be appearing at the following events, where attendees will be able to get a signed copy of the comic at a discounted rate:

Art Heroes will be holding upcoming events in the following venues: 

Sunday 26th October: Seven Stories, 11am - 1pm and 2pm - 4pm

Monday 10th November: Northern Children's Book Festival event

Sat 15th and Sun 16th November: Thought Bubble Comics Festival

Friday 21st November: Northern Children's Book Festival event

We'll be taking a closer look at "Endangered and Other Strange Stories" with a preview very very soon, and if we can nab a bit of the team's valuable time we'll be interviewing them about their influences and other cool comics-ey style stuff.