As UK voters head to the polls, Myfanwy Tristram tells us about the Comics Cultural Impact Collective’s campaign to use comics to tell incoming MPs what matters.

Tomorrow, we’ll find out who our new MPs are. And, little do those MPs know that there's something special waiting for them.

But let’s go back a little. Last month, I was making a cup of tea, shouting back at politicians on the radio. Not that unusual a scenario, if I’m honest — but this time the shouting was a little more impassioned.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was on a mission to “crack down” on “Mickey Mouse” degrees, listing Comic Arts as one of the university courses that fail to provide “long-term earning potential”.

As one of six co-Directors of the Comics Cultural Impact Collective, working to create better opportunities for comics creators in the UK, I was dismayed. I wanted our politicians to know that skills and hard work go into making our wonderful artform – and that comics are a viable industry, as we can see by looking across to countries such as France and Belgium where they make a hefty contribution to the national economies.

So off I went to write a cross opinion piece, signing off with the thought: “Here's an idea - why not greet your incoming MP this July with a comic you've made?”

It really was just a fleeting idea — but it started to grow on me. What if everyone did make a comic for their new MP; better still, made it now, before the election, so that, not knowing who was going to get in, there’d be no room for vitriolic partisan sentiment?

We could tell our new MPs what issues we’d like them to focus on – whether that be funding for the arts, the NHS, the economy, our local services - and show by example that comics are more than just Mickey Mouse.

And so, with just four weeks before the election, CCIC launched the #ComicsForMPs campaign. The idea was simple: make your comic now and send it to whoever becomes your MP in September (with the assumption that new MPs will be far too busy to read comics in the weeks immediately after taking office).

We knew we were on the right track when organisations like the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, the National Society for Education in Art and Design, the Cartoon Museum, Do Something, Anything and Broken Frontier offered immediate support, helping us to spread the word. Best of all, the British Library expressed an interest in obtaining copies of all the comics to keep in their collection for perpetuity.

Comics are such a great medium for political content, because they can lure people in with appealing visuals before delivering a serious message. No-one can accuse them of being dry or hard to follow (or at least, you have to try quite hard to make comics that are either of those things!) — and with their unique combination of words, images, speech balloons and thought bubbles, they can handle complex subject matter.

It’s been wonderful seeing artists rising to the challenge, and we’ve seen comics tackling all kinds of topics including water pollution, nursery funding, the welfare state, urban nature - and of course, funding for the arts.

We really hope our new cohort of MPs will enjoy reading the comics that await them in September — and more importantly, that the comics have the desired effect of helping them find out more about what matters to their constituents, and showing what comics can do. We also hope that comics makers will continue to embrace this new form of political engagement!

Here is a selection of the comics submitted:

Comic by Nadia Barbu

A Clean Glass of Water by Ottilie Hainsworth

Universal Credit by Susan Sainsbury

Welcome to Brighton, Kemp Town & Peacehaven by Myfanwy Tristram

Welcome to Glasgow Northeast by Letty Wilson

To see more comics for MPs, follow the Cultural Comics Impact Collective on Instagram. Find out more about CCIC via their website and sign up to their newsletter.

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