Nearly there! Getting ready for Spineless launch day 1st August

We're counting down to launch day for Spineless: The Newcastle Science Comic.  Spineless is our free comic about invertebrates in partnership with the Spineless exhibition at Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle this summer.  The exhibition and comic are all about minibeasts: where they live, what they do, and why they’re important.

This blog post offers you 3 simple steps to comics enlightenment (or, info about what's going on around our launch day on 1st August):

1. read our cover comic
2. who's who: remember to meet our contributors
3. here's some launch day info

Step 1: let's all sit down and have a read of our cover comic by Jess Bradley

Pretty awesome, innit. Here are some people who think so:

L-R: Contributor & guest curator Vivek Nityananda, Managing Editor Britt Coxon, Editor in Chief Lydia Wysocki.  Photo by @paulxthompson

Step 2: remember who our six comics creation dream teams are:

• Jess Bradley
• Terry Wiley, with guest curator Irene Brown
• Emily Rose Lambert, with guest curator Dan Skerritt
• Samuel C Williams, with guest curators Vivek Nityananda and Erica McAllister
• Sigmund Reimann, with guest curator Fiona Ware
• John Gatehouse and Dave Windett, with the Environmental Records Centre North East

Some of our 20,000 comics. That's 450 kilograms of comics, right there.   Photo by @paulxthompson)

Step 3: join us on launch day
Spineless-the-comic is free and launches in print on 1st August. There are 20,000 print copies and we're proud of every last one of them.  It has 16 pages and is full colour throughout, all comics no messing. It's aimed at children age 6-10 but probably suitable for ages 6-110. We're also planning a digital version which will be available right here at newcastlesciencecomic.blogspot.com 

Spineless-the-exhibition at the Great North Museum: Hancock runs from 1st August to 1st November, but launch day is of course a special day.  On Saturday 1st August the Museum is open from 10am-4pm, with free cake for the first 200 children and activities all day - and, of course, your first chance to grab a free print copy of our Spineless comic.  Yes, you can take an extra one for your friend, and yes teachers can take extra for their class.  The exhibition is free but donations are welcome.  Info: https://greatnorthmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/spineless 

Spineless comic contributors and friends of the project will be at the exhibition from 3-4pm to have a good look around and marvel at all the people reading our comic.  We'll then be off to the pub to raise a glass to the comic. Say hello if you see us!

Can't wait until then?  Asteroid Belter, our first Newcastle Science Comic comic is still available to read in full free online: http://newcastlesciencecomic.blogspot.co.uk/p/asteroid-belter-project.html.