Art Heroes

Who are you?
Art Heroes.

Art Heroes is the trading name of Daniel Clifford and Lee Robinson, a writer and artist team publishing comic books and offering a range of creative workshops.

What are you doing?
The Canny Comic Con will be the North East launch of Art Heroes. The first Art Heroes comic, Halcyon & Tenderfoot, will be previewed in the budget #0 comic - packed with clues for almost every story that will appear in the 4-times-a-year ongoing series.

The Art Heroes boys will also be sketching, signing, giving tips on how to make comic, selling subscriptions to the Halcyon and Tenderfoot series and running a create-a-character competition.

What have you done?
Daniel Clifford is the writer and co-creator of Newcastle's very own costumed crime-fighter, Sugar Glider, which has been a critical and sales success. As well as writing and publishing comics, Daniel had been running comic book workshops for two years under the name 'Jack and Daniel's Comic Book Workshops' before setting up Art Heroes with Lee.

Lee Robinson is a Hexham-based artist. Over the last few years he has completed a number of illustration projects and worked with young people and vulnerable adults. His first comic book work was the 12-page mini comic, Anthony, included in Sugar Glider 2. Sugar Glider Stories 2 will feature a 4-page strip by Lee, 'Costume', which reveals an important piece of the Sugar Glider origin story.

Why comics?
The Art Heroes lads have always been interested in comic books. Comics are great entertainment (a vibrant, visual storytelling medium), a wonderful aid to learning (a fantastic resource for getting youngsters passionate about reading) and can be incredibly cathartic to make and read.

Further info:
You can find the Art Heroes website at www.artheroes.co.uk. It's not finished yet, but when it is it will look great! You can also buy Halcyon & Tenderfoot issue 0 at http://artheroes.bigcartel.com.

Gordon Robertson

Who are you?
Gordon Robertson. Writer. Fan of Morrissey, Herge, Powell and Pressburger, Ealing Comedies and a probably mythical time when the best thing in the world was to be British.

What have you done / what are you doing?
Co-creator of the world's number one webcomic with the word 'Arse' in the title. It's a slightly surreal take on my experiences as a bowel cancer sufferer and wonderfully drawn by co-creator Cuttlefish.

Founder of the Glasgow League of Writers - a comic book writer's collective in Glasgow who meet to discuss, workshop and chat about writing. Our first anthology is coming soon, to be quickly followed by our second one and then…well you get the picture. The League has been a fantastic success and is something I would like to see reach out to other writers across the UK and beyond.

Comic book editor for GEEKChocolate. I do reviews and news for this upmarket geek site. Not as often as I should, or would like to, but that's the pain of the day job for you.

You can find some previous comic book stuff in Bulletproof Comics' Bomb Scares anthology and I have some previous convictions I would like taken into account in the world of film and TV.

Why comics?
Comics were my first love. I was a precocious child and I clearly remember the first book I ever borrowed from the library, when I was round about 5 - The Crab With the Golden Claws. I was hooked from that moment on.

Tintin, Asterix and the UK Mighty World of Marvel weeklies fuelled my over active imagination as a child and made me the man I am today.

I love the collaborative process of creating comics. Seeing someone take what you've written and turn it into images is a buzz like no other. Particularly when, as is the case with Arse Cancer, the artist takes your words and turn them into something way beyond what theywould otherwise have been.

Further info:
Visit our webcomic http://www.arsecancer.co.uk/
Follow the Glasgow League of Writers on Twitter: @GLoWriters