UK kids comics? Are these mythical beasts? We say NAY with some of the best publishers and comics hailing from this side of the Atlantic

A few short years ago, people would openly scoff at you if you dared ask about comics for kids. Supermarket magazine areas were (and sadly are) rammed with horrible ad-filled plastic-tat-toting licensed comics and magazines for kids that skipped on quality storytelling in favour of encouraging kids to nag their parents to buy even more tat.

But things have changed radically over the last few years, in the US undoubtedly but also in the UK where we're lucky enough to have several publishers going great guns in producing some of the best child-friendly comics and graphic novels money can buy.

We're kicking off our whirlwind tour of innovative UK kid comic publishers with Blank Slate, a mighty indie whose titles push way past the boundaries of what most folk will think of when they imagine what a modern child-friendly comic looks like.

Have a leaf through "Beetroot" for example. At first glance it's a surreal trippy story about a young boy making his way through a bizarre magical land, but author Barnaby Richards has constructed a glorious work of allegorical fiction based around the real-life experiences of what it is like for a child to grow up in a war zone.

Barnaby recounts how his family moved to Beirut in 1980 just as the already unstable situation in the Lebanon was about to turn into something worse. We see what it is like to live amidst chaos in a city where guns and bullets are commonplace, where danger lurks just round the corner. All seen through the eyes of a child who can’t get his tongue round the word Beirut–it becomes Beetroot–a world populated with his own wild imaginings as well as the reality of feeling he is living as if he were Lebanese: a blue eyed, Arab boy.
After a tragic accident leaves his family bereft, a young boy called Hugo finds his world turned upside down. His new home comes with new neighbours, among them (according to the boy next door) a dangerous recluse who eats children: the Wolfman.

Desperate to return to happier days, Hugo draws up plans for a time machine. But only the Wolfman has the parts that Hugo needs to complete his contraption, and that will mean entering his sinister neighbour’s house…

Beautifully illustrated in pencil, Wolf is a captivating and poignant exploration of family, grief and that blend of the everyday and the fantastical that is childhood.
Imagine living in a world were you are nothing more than vermin to giant aliens who have now invaded Earth and have taken your place at the top of the food chain.