Macclesfield: King Edward Street's Room for Comics celebrates third anniversary
A one-of-a-kind business in Macclesfield has just celebrated their third anniversary.
Room for Comics, of King Edward Street, is a drawing workshop and hangout space which opened three years ago this month.
A celebratory drawing class was held at the weekend, and Macclesfield Nub News went to meet founder and artist Marc Jackson to find out more.
"Room for Comics is Macclesfield's comic and cartoon arts studio, based here in the centre of Macclesfield," he said.
"We hold regular drawing workshops for children, including during the holidays and on Treacle Market Sundays.
"We also do adult classes, private classes, team building for business, and we also use it as a bit of a base for our comics festival called MACC-POW, which has really put Macclesfield on the map.
"Room for Comics promotes the wonder of comics on a daily basis."
Marc, who has been published in the Beano, and was recently featured in the national news for helping to make Macclesfield trendy, lives in Macclesfield but is originally from Marple.
He established the MACC-POW comic art festival almost ten years ago, which is held one weekend in July every year.
But Room for Comics has allowed all-year-round celebration of cartoonists and comic-style artwork, being a truly unique fixture of Macclesfield's high street.
Room for Comics is a family business, with his kids being into comic art drawing too, and his partner Jane helping market his business.
"It feels fantastic to have reached three years," he revealed.
"Especially when we started, we were coming out of any and all restrictions.
"It has just been great. You start anything, you hope it is going to be a success, it was based off workshops I held at Macclesfield Library and The Picturedrome that I'd done in the past. And here we are now.
"I just wanted a space to give people a base. It was also a great way to tap into what we have done with the Comics festival and expand the contacts. And they've all gone, wow this is pretty cool or I wish I had a place like this.
"We are very fortunate that it has grown and been so well received.
"Room for Comics has been like MACC-POW, in the sense that we started up to giving Macclesfield something, but also bringing people into macclesfield.
"People come here, then they go spend some money at Flour Water Salt or Pizza Express. [Located just around the corner from Room for Comics.]
"And it is not just a place for people who are local. People from all over the UK have been as well.
"We celebrated our third anniversary last Saturday, with a birthday-themed drawing workshop.
"It has been a fantastic summer, and our busiest summer yet. Thank you to everyone for their support.
"In the future, we have two busy drawing workshops set for Halloween. The kids can come dressed up.
"We like to shake things up. They are not coming here for the same old drawing workshop. We like to theme them."
In our age of screens, screens, and more screens, Marc is an advocate for putting pen to paper and the creativity it can allow.
Marc promotes a sense of freedom, when it comes to drawing.
"I am not the first person to be doing comic workshops, but the way we approach them is unique," he explained.
"The enthusiasm, the way we talk to them, and the strategy in getting them to draw stuff.
"I take away any form of template, or structure, and give the kids have a choice in what they want to draw.
"It is all about making it fun throughout. Comics don't have to be in square boxes.
"It has been quite incredible over the past three years to see a shift in children, they have a lot going on. Even coming here for fun, for some of them, it is fun but they find it tough. My job has been to try and make that easier.
"I do connect this to the pandemic, a lot of children were handed a lot of iPads, because parents had to get on with their work.
"However, a lot of online tutorials don't account for human error.
"I met a girl who said 'My drawings have to be perfect, because if I upload them to the internet, people will make fun of me'.
"But I am teaching them to forget about that, there is more than one way to draw a circle. Why do you need to make a circle perfect, if you can recognise that it is a circle? That little way of thinking different, may be something that someone needs, if their confidence is low."
Room for Comics also sells Marc's work, and he can be commissioned to do artwork in shop windows for businesses across Macclesfield.
The comic and cartoon art studio is open Monday to Saturday. And once a month, for Macclesfield's Treacle Market, Room for Comics also opens their doors to a Sunday crowd.
Future workshops can be booked via Eventbrite.
Marc went on to detail what it is like taking part in one of his workshops.
"A lot of it is starting with the basics," he shared.
"So learning to draw, teaching those skills, and bringing in comic storytelling such as sound effects, that is what we teach. But building confidence, that is the biggest thing. And you carry that through life.
"The workshops also talk about the history of comics.
"I think it is important for children to learn these things.
"You'd be amazed at how much they remember, and how much it is important to them.
"Any time you put a name to a creative, I think that is really important.
"When I was reading the Beano, there was a time where cartoonists were not able to sign their work.
"But it was something that was imported over from American comics. People like to see their names on their work. We get the children to sign their work too, to be proud of it."
Macclesfield: Click HERE to follow Marc's business on Instagram.
Room for Comics is not the only creative cause that has recently turned three.
Macc Repair Cafe will turn three this weekend, please click HERE for more information.
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